Creating a Homeschool Science Curriculum (Elementary)
This post is now located here: Homeschool Science Unit Checklist for Elementary and Middle School
Author: Liesl - Homeschool Den
You wake up on the weekend with all these plans…
only to find out that making a dog bed is on your agenda!! ED decided she really, really had to have a dog bed for her pet puppy, Cookie. She and I put our heads together this morning, got out the fabric scraps, sewing machine and set to work! Now there’s a sense of accomplishment for 9am on a Sunday! It turned out pretty cute! It’s fun to be a...
Living-Non Living Montessori Cards
Today I have some free Montessori-style Living and Non-Living Sort Cards for you! 🙂 Use these cards to sort into living and non-living groups. Behind the scenes I’ve been getting things ready for our upcoming science units. ED will be doing a bit of animal classification review and I made some new cards for her. I realized, though, that if any of my readers have younger kids in the 2-4...
Preschool Science at Home
Five or six weeks ago, someone asked me how I go about setting up our science units. I wanted to spend some time really laying out that process. Since we have homeschooled from the start, I thought it would make the most sense to talk about the preschool years first. (Click here to see the second post in the series: Science in the Elementary Years. Science in the preschool years:...
Our Homeschool Plans This Semester
Over the holidays I spent a lot of time away from the computer (blogging, that is), but I did pull together plans for the new semester. Here’s what’s on the agenda: Science: We’ll be starting an earth science unit on weather, wind and water. We’ll be starting with an overview of the Earth’s 4 systems and then will learn about the atmosphere before continuing on to wind, weather, etc. daily...
Year in Review at NASA
A couple of days ago I mentioned how I really love the year-end wrap up programs. I thought I’d mention that NASA has a Year in Review post that the kids and I really enjoyed. When DD saw NASA’s photo of the newest astronaut class she said, “Go Girls!!” because there are 4 women and 4 men pictured! It was really tough to pick our favorite photos. We loved the incredible...
3 Inspiring Books for Educators
You know a book is really great when you can’t read it without paper and pencil in hand to jot down all those flashes of inspiration! This break I’ve read several books for teachers that have really resonated with me. For those of you still on break, I thought I would mention them. Even if you’re not on break, they are inspiring and well worth squeezing in time to read...
Self-Reflection Questions for New Years
The year is quickly coming to a close. I absolutely love the year end wrap-ups that come on TV… remembering and reflecting on the good, the amazing, the bad, the sad… And it’s worth thinking about our family’s own year in that same way. Here are some questions to consider about the year. At the end of the post I’ll share a year-end wrap-up of my own. (It’ll be a...
A Mom’s Wishlist for Santa
Dear Santa, This year my 8-year-old daughter asked if I was going to write to Santa. She’s been writing to you all year and thinking very carefully about what she wants for Christmas. It’s been a while now since I’ve taken the time to write to you, but I think I’ll do that this year! So Santa, I’d like to start off with the basics. To be honest, I’m not...
Gandhi (Free Worksheets/Notebook Pages)
This week we finished up our studies of India with a close look at Gandhi, his life and contributions. We read a number of children’s books and biographies and watched highlights from the well-known movie, Gandhi. There are a few parts of the movie that (in my opinion) are too rough for younger kids, but some of the scenes (the Indian country-side, the marches) were amazing! The movie is SO...
Free Christmas Music for Beginning Piano Players
My kids have been asking for more Christmas music to play on the piano. I went to two of my favorite music-related websites and saw both of them have free Christmas music for beginning piano players. Some of it is perfect for DD who is now on her second year of piano and some of it is great for ED who just started learning piano this fall. The first website is...
Free Christmas Math Games (Double Digit Number Game, Grid Game): Ages 4-8
Last week I shared some of the math card games I played with the kids. Life has been busy and I only had the chance to print out these next two games yesterday. I’ll share them with you today. These are a couple more games that use the Christmas Number Cards I shared last week. The first game is called the Quick Christmas Cross-Off. It’s great for kids who are...
Free Holiday Skip Counting Pages (2s thru 7s)
I made some Christmas skip counting mazes for my daughter and printed them out for her math notebook. At the moment she is only work on the 2s, 3s and 5s, but I made other mazes as well since your kids might be ready for more advanced math. Free Holiday Skip Counting Practice 2s thru 7s Click here to save these on Pinterest! If you find them useful, I’d love...
Snowflake Math (2 1/2 Year Old’s Activity)
With all the snow and ice we’ve had this week, it brought to mind a really cute activity I did with ED when she was a toddler. This time of year there should be some pretty snowflake ornaments at the hobby store like the ones I got a few years ago. When ED was 2 1/2 she always came running when I called the older kids for math time....
