Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
A lot of the time I share our latest homeschool activities, but sometimes I like to share a bit about what’s going on for us. 🙂 Despite the high traffic on the blog now, it’s still the place I tend to chronicle our family’s adventures! March is usually a very busy one for our family. A couple of weeks ago, DD had her aerials showcase. Aerials is a neat sport because it...
Science: Cell Unit / Science: Chemistry Unit / Science: Garden Science / Science: Plant Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 20, 2015 · Last modified April 2, 2021
This week we spent a few days talking about photosynthesis. We covered the basic differences between plant and animal cells last week and I wanted to briefly talk about the process of photosynthesis before moving on to our Human Body unit. Some of the things we talked about included as we learned about the process of photosynthesis: parts of the plant, plant cells and the plant organelles, what is needed for...
Homeschool: Organizing and Cleaning / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 17, 2015
It’s that time of year again. We’re trying to schedule in summer camps and family vacations. I work really well with paper calendars for keeping track of things here by my desk. This is the spring-summer calendar I made and just thought I’d share it for anyone else who can use it. 🙂 Free Spring-Summer 2015 Calendar Some of our summer plans? We are hoping to go on another Fossil...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 16, 2015 · Last modified March 15, 2015
Today we’re off from school because I’m on my way to Baltimore — to Johns Hopkins — for a six month follow up after my 6th ear surgery last year!! (Okay, in reality I’ve had about 15 ear surgeries in my lifetime, but six of those were last year!!). I had a terrible year last year which resulted in my becoming deaf in that ear, but it has a good...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 15, 2015 · Last modified March 13, 2015
On the weekends, I’ve been trying to share articles about homeschooling (or parenting in general) I’ve found from around the web. Since not everyone is on Facebook, I thought I’d share some of the recent article links here as well: *I shared this post I wrote last March: Why You Shouldn’t Reward Kids for Learning partly because I saw an article about “Grit” in the Washington post (see the next entry!) *Do Your...
Happy Pi Day!! My normally sleepy kids set their alarms to be sure they would be up by 9:26am this morning!! “You DO realize, Mom,” DD informed me… “that this is LITERALLY a once in a lifetime opportunity.” Yes, this is the same DD who has more than 30 digits of Pi memorized. But, she is always quick to point out that her best friend has 50 digits memorized in...
Active Math Games / Math--Addition / Math--Division / Math--Multiplication
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 12, 2015 · Last modified June 22, 2020
I have some fun (free!) Minecraft math worksheets to share with you all today! There are math worksheets for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. You need to print out the page you are interested in (preferably on cardstock). You need to make sure you have a QR Code Reader app on your cell phone or tablet. The one we downloaded was free. Cut out the cards, have the kids solve the...
Homeschool Den / Science / Science: Cell Unit / Science: Garden Science / Science: Plant Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 10, 2015 · Last modified March 23, 2023
This Cell Unit Packet is over 100 pages and includes worksheets, interactive notebook pages and even a “Build Your Cell” game! We have had such an amazing time with this cell unit. The goal has been not only to help the kids learn the parts of the cells (organelles), their function, and the difference between animal and plant cells, but also to understand the process of protein synthesis (on a...
Homeschool Den / Kindergarten Math / Math General Posts / Math--Addition
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 9, 2015 · Last modified April 15, 2015
I made this set of Montessori-Style subtraction pages for ED to practice borrowing. She started using these last week. I know lots of people have downloaded our Montessori Style Addition pages and thought some of you might find these pages useful too! They are free to download: Montessori Style Subtraction with Borrowing Other Montessori Style Math Worksheets You Might Be Interested In: Free Montessori Style Addition Sheets (Without Regrouping)...
History: Middle Ages / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 6, 2015 · Last modified March 5, 2015
The last week or so we have learned a lot about King Arthur and Charlemagne. Last week, I shared our monasteries worksheets. This week we finished reading a fabulous book about King Arthur. I’ve read a lot of King Arthur stories/books over the years, but this one was absolutely perfect for our homeschool… with rich exciting tales that the kids and I all loved! I mentioned it last week, but it’s...
Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Random Thoughts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 5, 2015
Don’t tell my kids… but I’m pretty tired…. not with school itself, but with being the mediator. It’s mid-semester for us and I’m not as patient with the kids as I should be… well, or a better way to put that is that the kids are really grating on each other’s nerves and I can’t always nip it in the bud. We’ve had to have talk after talk about treating...
Language Arts - Grammar Worksheets
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 4, 2015 · Last modified February 24, 2016
I made two new grammar practice sheets for the kids that I’ll share with you today. One sheet has the eight apostrophe rules. The kids have to place apostrophes where necessary and decide which rule is being used. The other sheet requires them to chose the correct form of they’re/there/their or its/it’s. The answer key for that is also included (though not shown below). 🙂 Apostrophe Rules and Practice...
Homeschool Den / Lapbooks / Science: Dinosaurs Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 2, 2015 · Last modified October 25, 2022
DD had an amazing time with this Dinosaur Unit! She did everything from learning many of the dinosaur’s names, to finding out what they ate, what period they lived in, and a number of dinosaur games along the way! This packet covers 15 dinosaurs: Allosaurus, Ankylosaurs, Apatasaurus, Brachiosaurus, Herrerasaurus (one of the earliest dinosaurs), Iguanodon, Parasaurolophus, Plesiosaurus, Pteranodon, Quetzalcoatlus, Spinosaurus, Stegosaurus, Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Velociraptor. There are Montessori 3-Part cards...
Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 27, 2015 · Last modified February 26, 2015
How are we introducing note taking and research skills into our homeschool? One skill that middle and high school students (and beyond!) need is the ability to take notes–either by picking out important key points from books and resources they read or from listening to a speaker or lecturer. In the elementary years, I’ve slowly been trying to help the kids build these skills. I wanted to write this post...
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.
