Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 26, 2011 · Last modified February 3, 2016
Knowing we’d be doing the hamburger plant activity and to get us into the proper mood, we had hamburgers for dinner the night before! This activity came from the instructor’s manual of the Junior Master Gardener program. The next morning we drew pictures of an imaginary hamburger plant. The purpose of this activity was to discuss the origins of many of the ingredients in a hamburger. When you trace things...
Nature / Outdoor Fun / Science: Garden Science
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 24, 2011 · Last modified March 22, 2016
Gardening continues to be a rewarding part of our home life. We all have an incredible enthusiasm for our new gardening adventures! Here’s a glimpse at our veggie garden. I put in planks to keep ED and the others from wandering all over the garden. They enjoy balancing along them and have claimed certain sections for themselves! We already have quite a large number of lettuce plants (since that’s one...
Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Recipes / Science
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 22, 2011
There is so much to consider about buying salmon. I sure didn’t realize any of this so thought I’d share. 1) Salmon are carnivores. In the wild they start eating microscopic plants and animals. As they get bigger they eat tiny crustaceans (krill) which gives them their pink color and then larger fish. 2) Farmed salmon is a nice gray color. Hmmm… but salmon farmers resort to cosmetics to change...
We found another book series that has LD really engaged. The books are called Andrew Lost and they follow the adventures of a young boy who builds a shrinking machine. He, his cousin and their robot get lost on the neighbor’s dog — in the midst of blood-sucking monsters (fleas). They continue on to other adventures 2) in the bathroom 3) in the kitchen 4) in the garden etc. This...
Arts and Crafts / History: Ancient Aztecs, Incas and Mayans / History: Native American Indians Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 18, 2011 · Last modified January 1, 2015
We continued to read The Corn Grows Ripe (about a Mayan boy and his family) this week and talked about life Mexico. We read about these imaginative creatures called Alebrijes at this art lesson plan website. In Mexico these are carved from one piece. Since we had lots of woodscraps (I bought lots of wood craft kits of cars, bird houses etc. for 50cents back in December), this seemed like...
We eat a lot of raisin bread in our household. In the past six months the price of raisin bread has gone up 50 cents. Plus, the ingredients in the loaves at our local grocery store make me shutter a bit. So, the past few months I’ve been baking my own raisin bread. I’ve been experimenting with different recipes. Last night I came across one (here) and modified it just...
Arts and Crafts / History: Ancient Aztecs, Incas and Mayans / History: Native American Indians Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 16, 2011 · Last modified January 1, 2015
We looked at the brilliant colors of Mayan rugs visiting these sites: here, here, and at the Mayan Culture websites. We talked about the patterns they saw. Then the kids spent a lot of time while listening to our novel coloring their own Mayan rugs. They worked really quite hard over several days: They used oil pastels for this project.
Arts and Crafts / History: Ancient Aztecs, Incas and Mayans / History: Native American Indians Unit / History: World Religions
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 15, 2011 · Last modified January 1, 2015
The Huichol Indians of Mexico and Aymara Indians of Bolivia make “eye of God” yarn crafts. Originally they were placed on alters, but now they are often sold in markets. I thought this was a perfect craft for the kids to go along with our talks about the ancient Mayan Indians. I used to make these in Girl Scouts, but came across this website which has details on how to...
History: Ancient Aztecs, Incas and Mayans / History: Native American Indians Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 14, 2011 · Last modified April 3, 2015
In our slow, but steady move through history we have talked about nomads, ancient Egypt, ancient China, ancient Greece and Rome and then up into the Middle Ages. From here we’re going to turn to the Americas. Our next history unit study will be on Native Americans. I hope to incorporate some good literature books into our studies over the next few months (let me know if you have good...
Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 12, 2011
I developed this blog in large part for me. It helps me keep a record of what we’ve done and it also helps me stay organized and keep track of websites where I’ve gotten activity ideas and printables. You should see my drafts!! Whenever I’m cruising around trying to find information and activities for new units I create a “draft” and link lots of the websites I come across. I...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 12, 2011 · Last modified March 3, 2016
Here are the other two experiments LD and the girls did. It sure was nice just stepping back to watch the kids do this themselves this time round. Color Changing Milk 1) Pour milk onto a plate 2) Add three drops of food coloring (red, blue, yellow) 3) Place a Q-tip in dishsoap. Then carefully place the Q-tip in the center of the plate without moving it around. The colors...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 11, 2011 · Last modified October 22, 2015
LD was itching to do some of his old science experiments this morning. We had all of the directions collected on a 3X5 ring (from when we did them a year+ ago). LD leafed through and chose several experiments. Here is the first one he and the girls did. It’s been over a year since we last did this experiment, but it still had a real “wow” factor for all...
LD actually told me, “Mom, I like reading more than TV!” In the past few weeks he has zoomed through a fantasy series called Beast Quest and he would read one and often two books a day! The series is about a young boy who goes on a quest to release various beasts from a spell that was placed on them (the beasts protect their kingdom). I’ve always loved sci...
ED (age 3) needs more work identifying her numbers 4-9 and counting consistently with one-to-one correspondence. This is an action game I put together for her to work on some of her preschool skills. There are two dice:1) with the numbers 4 through 92) with the shapes — star, square,oval, rectangle, circle and triangle There’s a game board with 24 spaces and these symbols on them. There are wooden numbers...
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.
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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.
