Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
To go along with the build-a-sentence pack I made, I put together some free writing prompts. I’ll share it here in case some of you find it helpful for your emergent writers. It is 18 pages.Click here for the Free-Writing Prompts Pack
Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Preschool for ED - Fall 2011 (age 3 1/2)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 8, 2011
ED and I always get up an hour or two before the others. We cuddle up in front of the fire first thing and read books. We often do a craft to go along with it. I loved this picture because Crystal, the kitten, was so hands-on with this activity!! We’ve also been playing lots of games together in the morning; Uno is her current favorite (though we usually play...
Freebies / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 7, 2011 · Last modified March 7, 2016
Over the weekend, I made a set of Build_A_Sentence-Creative-Writing-Pack for my first-grader. Build_A_Sentence Creative Writing Activity Here are my plans for them: The first couple of pages are filled with ideas. She’ll go through and create sentences (silly or not) to write in her journal. Next we’ll work together to brainstorm ideas for some of the other themed sheets. I made about twenty different themed sheets with topics such as friendship, aliens,...
In collection (our morning group time) we talked about building super sentences. I used some materials I got from the Teacher Filebox (a subscription site that gives you access to most of the Evan Moor books from writing and reading to science and history). This was a great activity for DD and good review for LD (ages 6 and 8). First we looked at a simple sentence. The frog hopped.Then...
We had such a great homeschooling day on Monday. I was skeptical we’d get into the groove since we had just had my niece and nephew with us for four days. I brought in some spooky schooling, though and we had a terrific day! I went out and bought some dry ice and we did a number of experiments. You can see suggestions from Steve Spangler science and a couple...
Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 31, 2011
I’ve been itching to do a posting about our general homeschool schedule/day. What things we cover aside from the units I so often post about. Reading: Both DD and LD are good readers now. DD is reading easier chapter books while LD is on longer chapter books now. They both get up in the morning and read while eating breakfast. I always sprinkle our dining room room table with books...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 29, 2011 · Last modified October 18, 2015
I organized the Halloween Party this year. We had quite a lot of games and I think everyone had a great time. The youth organized a haunted room and another adult set up a spooky cake walk with black lights and so forth which was a huge, huge hit! The kids also loved the skeleton scavenger hunt where teams competed to find the various parts of the skeleton (we took...
Ages 2-6: Preschool for ED - Fall 2011 (age 3 1/2) / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 26, 2011
This was a unit I thought would mostly be fore ED, but all the kids jumped excitedly into it!. My kids know very little about the American deserts of the southwest, though they could tell you heaps about the Australian desert (they were born in the Outback and we moved back to the US about a year and a half ago). So we focused on features and animals of Texas,...
Engineering - STEM Activities / Science: Human Body Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 24, 2011 · Last modified January 4, 2015
Our last brain-related activity was to design a helmet that would protect our egg pilot in a fall. The shell, I told them, was his skull; the egg white and yolk was his brain. Then I left the kids to it! LD designed a balloon-encased egg protector. DD designed a construction paper protective cloak: Mom designed a cotton ball-play dough helmet: I took the photo before covering it...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 19, 2011 · Last modified December 31, 2014
We have been studying the brain in fits and spurts the last couple of weeks. For some reason, we’re only getting to it about twice a week. But here’s what we’ve done. We talked quite a bit about the functions of the brain (not the senses as we’ll do this later), but things like memory, thinking, sleep and thing like that. MEMORY: First we talked about the difference between long...
Sometimes DD and I just play games and don’t work in her textbooks. I thought I’d share what she’s doing for the next few days or so for addition. She’s working on sums of 11 and 12. I printed out gameboards and partner worksheets from The School Bell, Kathy Gursky’s website. Before we started playing the game, though we went over the T-bar sums (0+11, 1+10, 2+9, etc.) We used...
Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 17, 2011
This past weekend was DD’s birthday party. DD did the majority of the decorating herself! I thought she did a great job on these froggie cupcakes.
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 17, 2011 · Last modified March 17, 2016
The other day ED wanted to sit down and do another sewing craft. Here’s the little jack-o-lantern she made. She did much of it on her own this time.
We love these muffins so much that by the time I got around to taking a picture, there were only two muffins left! These are pretty easy to make and my kids love them. It’s the season for pumpkins, so it’s the perfect time to share this recipe. You need a very, very large mixing bowl. This recipe makes 24-30 muffins. 4 eggs 3 cups sugar 1/2 teaspoon baking powder...
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.
