Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Freebies / Math General Posts / Math--Addition
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 13, 2011
Find the missing addend activity: Do you ever get attitude when you do certain subjects with your kids?? For some reason, LD has been reluctant to do math from one of his books. Playing games has turned that attitude around (for the time being) and he’s really done some great math work in the past couple of weeks. (We start with games like our beloved Speed! Multiplication Game, the division...
I run two little music classes (for free) for our friends. We try to meet once a week (though illness, holidays, and travels sometimes gets in the way of that!!) For our music class last Friday we played a cute game that was a huge hit. Two parents made a bridge with their hands. The kids stood in a line and went under the bridge, circling back and going under...
Language Arts - Grammar Worksheets / Language Arts: Spelling
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 9, 2011
DD just finished up a lesson on plurals in her spelling program (we use All About Spelling which we love, love, love!). I saw this game over at First Grade and Fabulous which has the kids decide whether to add an -s or an -es. We played over and over. It was absolutely perfect timing for us, plus it’s really cute! Thank you so much, Deanne!
Ages 2-6: Bird Unit / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 8, 2011 · Last modified January 4, 2016
As I mentioned yesterday, we did a lot of reading about owls to lead into the awesome science study on owls! We talked about the forest food chain (who eats whom) and then I asked them what owls ate. Owls eat mice, voles, snakes and other small animals. They swallow their prey whole and about eight hours later spit out the parts they can’t digest in a pellet of fur...
Ages 2-6: Bird Unit / Montessori (general info) / Science / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 7, 2011 · Last modified October 11, 2018
We have had so much fun with this forest unit so far. We’ve done a ton of crafts and coloring. The kids colored in these cute owl pages (which are no longer available – http://katibura.xyz/printable/printable-coloring-pages-for-adults-owls). The kids did a simple fall craft we got at oriental trading: All the kids have been doing the forest animal sorts and we talked once again about vertebrate and invertebrate animals. The kids sorted...
Since LD and I have been playing his division games daily, DD wanted her own board as well. I made one up for her last night so she can work on her sums to 16, 17, 18 and 19. (ie. 8+8, 9+10 and so forth). If you are interested the addition games and cards are found here.
Freebies / Math General Posts / Math--Division
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 5, 2011
LD was asking for more math games, so I whipped up two quick division games. The first game is the same Bump game I’ve mentioned before, this time using division problems. You can print out your own Bump Division Game here. *Each player takes a turn taking a division card and solving the answer. *The player places a token on the correct number on the gameboard. *We use pennies and...
Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Nature
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 4, 2011 · Last modified April 16, 2015
Now to my family for a moment. Sometimes it’s good to know the ending and outcome of sad events.If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you might remember that my sister/bro-in-law and their family were victims of the May 2010 flooding in Nashville. My brother-in-law had just returned from a 9 month deployment to Iraq when the flood hit. They spent 12 hours moving as much as they...
History: American History / History: This is the United States-Unit Study (grade 1) / Trips We've Taken
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 2, 2011 · Last modified April 12, 2015
Last week I took the kids on a trip down to Nashville to spend time with my sister, brother-in-law and their three kids. They are homeschoolers as well. They are in 5th, 7th and 10th grades. A little bit more about them in my next post. We had a fantastic time with the family and also did a number of terrific outings. Here are a few things we did: Microbe...
The winner is #2, Boogiemum. Please get in touch within the next three days (the homeschool den no spaces at yahoo d-t com). Congratulations, it truly is a great game!
Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Preschool for ED - Fall 2011 (age 3 1/2) / Ages 2-6: Theme Time (age 2-4) / Science: Dinosaurs Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 30, 2011 · Last modified February 3, 2016
Two weeks ago, I read The Magic Tree House: Dinosaurs Before Dark (affiliate link) to ED. This inspired a short themed unit on dinosaurs. Here are a few of the things we did, plus other dinosaur books and dinosaur puzzles that I don’t have pictured below. Last week we were lucky enough to top our theme-time unit off with a visit to the Gray Fossil Site in east Tennessee on our...
Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Preschool for ED - Fall 2011 (age 3 1/2) / Freebies / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 29, 2011 · Last modified November 26, 2015
Forest Habitat Animal Sort – Vertebrates-Invertebrates ED’s next habitat study is on the forest. I made a set of cards for the kids to sort through. We’ll be sorting them by vertebrates-invertebrates and also into the five animal kingdoms: ( fish), amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. Oh and by the way, I didn’t include any fish in this sort–I did include a photo of crayfish that LD found in the...
LD has gone over a lot of the different long-A sound word groups for spelling. I made this word sort to help cement in some of those families especially the trickier ones such as eigh — weigh, eight, neighbor, sleigh aigh — straight ea — steak, break You can download a copy here if you are interested.
We had the privilege of reviewing a math card game called Speed! Oh boy is it fantastic! I would have to give it 5 stars for sure. I always try to include as many hands-on activities as possible in our homeschooling. DD still has a lot of math games, but I’ve been less creative with LD lately as he is working hard on reinforcing his basic multiplication and division skills....
Do you believe education can be exciting, inspiring, and full of joy? We do too!
I love the quote by William Butler Yeats, "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." It's about getting the kids involved, engaged, and fired up about learning (while juggling the rest of life too!)
A bit about me: I have my Master's from Brown University. I have more than 20 years of teaching experience. I was a high school teacher for many years both in the U.S. and internationally and also taught for the University of Maryland before leaving to homeschool my 3 wonderful kids.
To read more about us CLICK HERE.
Click on the image to find out more about the units and packets we have available.
This post has links to dozens of posts and resources both for new and veteran homeschoolers for everything from finding homeschool curriculum to general homeschool advice and encouragement.
Click on the image above to see the History Units we covered in our homeschool.
What science topics could I teach my 5-7 year old - Homeschool Science Curriculum
Click on the image above to see the Science Units we covered in our homeschool from elementary through middle school (and beyond!).
A list of the books we've used most in history, science, math, language arts, etc.
Click the image to check out our packets on Earth Science, Rocks and Minerals, the Atmosphere, Weather, Energy and More!
Units are also sold separately.
This is one of our most popular units. It covers the Layers of the Earth, Plate Tectonics, Earthquakes, Volcanoes and More! It is included in the Earth Science Bundle (see the picture/link above).
Click the image to see our Biology Units on Animal and Plant Cells; the Biology Unit on Biomes, Food Chains, Symbiosis; Scientific Classification & Taxonomy (Domain/Kingdom/Phylum/Class, etc.); Botany - Plant Kingdom and Oceans and Oceanography.
Click on the image to see our Animal Bundle - including the Animal Unit, Life Cycles, the Rainforest, Winter (Polar Animals) & Hibernation, Chameleons, Wolves, Cicadas and more!
The Human Body Systems, Skeletal, Digestive, Circulatory, Muscular, Nervous, Endocrine Systems and More (with lots of hands-on activity ideas)! We usually study a different body system each year.
Click on the image to see our units on the States of matter, Properties of Matter, Electricity & Circuits, and the Chemistry Unit (Get to know the Periodic Table in a fun way!)
This is a free checklist I put together of the various science units I hope to cover in the elementary and middle school years.
Do your kids know the 4 largest countries? Which countries have the most people? The longest river? This packet covers basic world and U.S. facts and also covers geographic features and land forms.
Click on the image to check out our 100-page unit on World War I.
We have used AAS for 6 years! AAS is an affiliate link.
Dozens of posts about how to create a homeschool writing workshop.
Click on the image to check out all of our fun K-2 Math Packets.
This is one of the best values we have... more than 20 PDFs with games, activities and worksheets to learn/practice the multiplication facts ($7.00).
Click on the image to discover some of the pages, posts and homeschool resources within our blog that might be the most useful for you including a long list of our freebies!
Click on the image to check out our 100+page Rocks and Minerals Unit.
This is a fun, hands-on unit for early elementary students!
How the body is organized from cells to tissues... organs to body systems
Click on the image to check out some of the Spanish worksheet bundles we have available!
Click on the image above to check out our German worksheets.
Click on the image to find out more about our units and packets.
