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History: India Unit / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Math General Posts / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 12, 2013 · Last modified March 12, 2016
Tis the season to be flexible! Some days we get quite a bit done, other days… not so much. I try to keep myself calm about that. Yesterday, for example, all our friends had a snow day. Often time we do school anyway, but the appeal of sledding and playing outside with friends won over! Today, we were back to the normal homeschool schedule. Here are some of the things...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 10, 2013 · Last modified May 22, 2017
The ice storm that hit our area was incredibly beautiful. Our house is nestled down in the woods and the trees were so pretty. The kids and I spent a lot of time outside taking pictures: DD took this picture: The evergreens looked pretty too: The holly bushes looked so striking with their bright red berries!! We had to include this last picture because it looked so crazy that the...
Holiday: Christmas Activities / Math General Posts / Math--Addition / Math--Multiplication / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 9, 2013 · Last modified December 8, 2018
There are lots and lots of different cards games you can play during math time. I made a set of six little cards (0-15) for my daughters this December. They look like this: Ages 2-4: If you have a toddler or preschooler you can print out two sets of numbers, cut out one set and have your kids match the numbers on the other (uncut) sheet. You can also use...
Arts and Crafts / Holiday: Christmas Activities / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 7, 2013
Every year there are a few Christmas decorations that I absolutely LOVE bringing out! I wanted to share a few of our family favorites! My personal favorites are the ones that include pictures of the kids. One year when the kids were not-quite-2, 4 and 6, I made a holiday picture banner. I took pictures of the kids holding all the letters in Merry Christmas. Then I laminated them and...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 6, 2013 · Last modified April 27, 2016
“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” – Nelson Mandela in his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom Last night I read about the passing of Nelson Mandela,...
Freebies / Homeschool Den / Language Arts - Grammar Worksheets
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 5, 2013 · Last modified May 16, 2023
Last week I mentioned that we’ve been doing some grammar review again. We went over 11 comma rules. Then each day they’ve been doing five or six sentences — adding in the comma where needed and identifying the comma rule that applies. My kids love science, so the comma worksheet has a lot to do with science this time. (There are sentences about the plague, polio, the Venus fly trap,...
Math General Posts / Math--Geometry
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 3, 2013 · Last modified July 20, 2018
Last fall (a year ago), LD did a unit on geometry. He needed some basic review of some of the things he learned — so I put together a small review pack for him. I’ll share it here for anyone who might find it useful. There are 6 pages, plus the answers. You can download the free Geometry Review Packet here: Geometry Review Worksheets He used the Geometry, Grades 6 –...
Freebies / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 2, 2013 · Last modified March 18, 2016
A couple of weeks ago, I started writing a series about how and why we started our own Homeschool Writing Workshop. This is the fourth post in the series. Since it’s been a while, let me link to the first few posts in the series Creating a Homeschool Writing Workshop — Post #1: How and Why We Got Started with a Workshop Model. Creating a Homeschool Writing Workshop – Post...
I hope everyone had a wonderful, safe Thanksgiving holiday. Life seemed to charge forward at break-neck speed and suddenly it was Thursday — Thanksgiving. We hadn’t even bought a turkey!! Since we didn’t have any extended family coming over (and the turkey was frozen solid!!!), we decided to have shrimp and veggies and a pumpkin pie on Thursday. Then we made the full spread on Friday (turkey, sweet potatoes, homemade...
Freebies / Homeschool Den / Math General Posts / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 27, 2013 · Last modified July 7, 2020
Yesterday, I mentioned that we’ve added a new portion to our math day. For much of the fall, the kids were simply doing math problems from their math book and they were complaining that math was B*O*R*I*N*G. What? Oh NO!! It was true, though, with everything else going on they were doing straight-forward stuff; you know fraction problems like this… or long division… or a good meaty problem like 5789...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 26, 2013 · Last modified July 27, 2018
I thought I would put a post together that helps give a flavor of what our daily homeschooling routine looks like. So many of my posts are compilations of our activities, but they don’t actually show what happens day-to-day. It’s about time to do that again (and I enjoy reading these posts later as the kids get older!) We have finally gotten back to a relatively normal schedule. (If you...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 25, 2013 · Last modified April 10, 2016
Here’s a math puzzle for your and your kids. Three match sticks are laid out in front of you. Moving just two match sticks, make six. I’ll share the answer in another day or so and explain why I’m asking!! 🙂 Happy puzzling! There’s another puzzle over at my Homeschool Den Facebook page if you like this sort of challenge! Later: The solution is here at More Math Brain-Teasers (Free...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 24, 2013 · Last modified April 10, 2016
Growing up, my family didn’t buy cookies at the grocery store, we always baked them at home. I love to bake and have been making cookies since I was little. By the time my sister went off to college (and I was in 7th grade), I took over the weekly task of baking cookies for my family’s lunches. We have some pretty great family recipes for shortbread cookies, peanut...
Critical Thinking Activities / Family Meeting / Games for Thinking and Learning / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 23, 2013 · Last modified April 10, 2016
It has been WAAaay too long since we had a family games night. For a while we did really well holding a family meeting once a month or so (see this post-Holding a Family Meeting) and this post (Our Monthly Family Meeting). Last weekend, though, everyone was home (no sleep-overs, no sporting events!) and so we gathered together to play a bunch of games! Fun! This was the first time we...
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.
