Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 10, 2014 · Last modified March 18, 2016
This was one of the best mini lessons we’ve had on writing. The kids still talk about how much they enjoyed sharing their memories and writing about them. They’ve asked me when we can do this again. I call that a successful day! If you’ve missed the previous posts in this series, I would suggest you go back and start with them, though honestly, you can do any of these...
Freebies / Holiday: St. Patrick's Day / Math--Division
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 9, 2014 · Last modified March 1, 2017
I made this division board game for my older two to review their math facts. They saw the addition games I made for ED and wanted one of their own! I thought I would share that here for anyone else might be interested in playing this with their kids! St. Patrick’s Day is Monday, March 17 this year. Download the free St. Patrick’s Day Division Board Game: Other Free St....
Freebies / Holiday: St. Patrick's Day / Math General Posts / Math--Multiplication
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 8, 2014 · Last modified March 1, 2017
Here are some multiplication pages I made for DD when she was working on memorizing her multiplication facts last year. I put together a number of different practice pages. There are 8 pages. As always, it is free to download. St Patricks Day Multiplication Pack Other Free St. Patrick’s Day Materials: St. Patrick’s Day Addition Game Boards St. Patrick’s Day Multiplication Pack St. Patrick’s Day Division Game Board and Division...
Freebies / Holiday: St. Patrick's Day / Kindergarten Math / Math General Posts / Math--Addition
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 7, 2014 · Last modified March 1, 2017
St. Patrick’s Day is coming up Monday, March 17th. I’ve made a number of math activities to get into the spirit! Today I’m sharing some game boards that I made for my daughter to practice some of her addition facts. There are three different game boards. One to practice making 9 (4+5, 6+3), one for making 14 (10+4, 7+&) and one for making 15 (7+8, etc.). There’s also a blank...
Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 6, 2014 · Last modified March 18, 2016
Day 4: Story Openings–Set the mood or feeling of your story You’ve set up a good writing space, have your supplies – pencils, journals, resource materials. Now what?!! This is the second in a series of 5 posts with lesson ideas to help young writers get started on their writing journey. Be sure to read the introduction to this series in last Monday’s post, Day 1. Here are some of our first mini-lesson topics....
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Preschool for ED - Fall 2011 (age 3 1/2) / Freebies / Homeschool Den / Montessori (general info) / Science: Vertebrates - Invertebrates
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 5, 2014 · Last modified July 3, 2020
It is animal week for my youngest daughter. We’ve been touching on vertebrates and invertebrates since the kids were little, but I wanted to go back and make sure ED really knew the characteristics of these groups and how animals are classified. First, we went over the difference between Vertebrates and Invertebrates again. We brought out our model frog skeleton again for a closer look! Then she went over the...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Interviews with other Homeschoolers
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 4, 2014 · Last modified April 16, 2015
My friend’s daughter wrote a blog post about homeschooling and they generously offered to let me post it here. I loved her piece and I hope you do too! My mom thought it would be helpful for me to give my perspective on homeschooling. Being an eleven-year-old homeschool student has some good things and some bad things. Good things: -I can sleep until nine every day! No getting up early...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 3, 2014 · Last modified May 15, 2016
Day 3: Creating Interesting Characters You’ve set up a good writing space, have your supplies – pencils, journals, resource materials. Now what?!! This is the second in a series of 5 posts with lesson ideas to help young writers get started on their writing journey. Be sure to read the introduction to this series in last Monday’s post, Day 1. Here are some of our first mini-lesson topics. I used mentor texts and picked...
This note made me choke up the other day. ED brought it along with breakfast one morning when I had fallen back asleep on the couch: This blog has been an incredible outlet for me the past couple of months because I have had some debilitating medical problems — all ear related. I’ve really tried not to pour out my woes too much on the blog, but life has been...
ED has finished her phonics programs and is now moving into independent reading. I was chatting with my friend and she had a wonderful idea to encourage this new-found independence. She suggested creating a reading garden. ED decided she wanted flowers, puppies and kittens in her garden. I chose some coloring pages, reduced them to the size I wanted, and printed them out. Whenever ED finishes reading a book on...
Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 27, 2014 · Last modified March 18, 2016
Writing Workshop Mini-Lesson #2: Make the Story Come Alive with Details; Show the reader what happened; Create images in the reader’s mind You’ve set up a good writing space, have your supplies – pencils, journals, resource materials. Now what?!! This is the second in a series of 5 posts with lesson ideas to help young writers get started on their writing journey. Be sure to read the introduction to this series in last Monday’s...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Preschool for ED - Fall 2011 (age 3 1/2) / Ages 2-6: Toddler/Preschool Activities / Freebies
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 26, 2014 · Last modified January 17, 2015
A couple of weeks ago, I shared a post about how to create your own preschool science curriculum at home (mostly with materials you’ll find around the house). I realized it has been a long time since I shared our long list of preschool activities. I wrote this post last year when ED was 4. The activities in this list really actually range from 2-6 year-olds or so. I’m a...
Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 25, 2014
I’m pretty sure you know exactly what I’m talking about, right? Not only are there a mountain of dishes to be put away, but there are dishes in the sink filled with cold nasty water with floating bits of who-knows-what. (Grrr.. why didn’t we just do them last night?) There’s laundry still in the dryer, waiting to be hauled out and folded. LD lost his math book. We spend 15...
Freebies / Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Writing / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 24, 2014 · Last modified March 18, 2016
You’ve set up a good writing space, have your supplies – pencils, journals, resource materials. Now what?!! This is the first in a series of 5 posts with lesson ideas to help young writers get started on their writing journey. Introduction: Writing Workshop Mini-Lessons I have spent a lot of time writing about why we use a writing workshop, how we set up and structure our writing workshop, and even went into...
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.
