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Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Arts and Crafts / Science Experiments
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 4, 2010
We did two art projects to show the spiral shaped, MilkyWay Galaxy. One was simply sparkles and shiny starspasted onto black paper. For the white pictures, the kids drew the Milky WayGalaxy with a white oil pastel. Then they painted overtheir drawing with black paint. We found that white oilpastels worked MUCH better for the kids than regularcrayola crayons.
Today we looked a bit more closely at Picasso’s “Still Life.”We did our versions of a still life (complete with lots of‘eyes’). I had the kids draw one continuous line that crossedover itself. Then they filled in the figures using oil pastels. The kids really like the vibrant colors of the oil pastels. You are looking at DD’s picture (and the small print Imade of Picasso’s painting).
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Arts and Crafts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 31, 2009
The new artist we put up in the calendar this week wasPablo Picasso. I remembered a wonderful Picasso artlesson at Art Projects for Kids that was aimed at firstgraders. There’s a similar lesson at Deep Space Sparkle.LD did well with it; he said it was hard, but he wasproud of his picture when he was done. DD colored inone that I outlined and did an impressive job too. Most weeks...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / History: Geography Activities
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 27, 2009 · Last modified May 21, 2017
DD has been putting together the Australian states and territories foam map most every day (top picture). She’s very confident with that so I thought she was about ready for a pin map of Australia. I find pin maps pretty easy to make these days. I’ve explained how I make them before, but if you missed the world map post, I’ll briefly explain how again. 1) First I laminated a...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / History: Geography Activities
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 18, 2009
Here is a foam map of Australia that DD and LD enjoyputting together.
Ages 2-6: Toddler/Preschool Activities / Homeschool: Random Thoughts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 18, 2009
The older kids are always given a small pitcher to pourtheir milk into their cereal. ED now has a very smallpitcher of milk to pour into her bowl. (She’s been doing thisfor a couple of months now, probably starting around 20months old, I think.) If she dribbles any milk she knowswhere the washclothes are and will go grab one out of thedrawer to wipe the table.
Ages 2-6: Fall Theme / Holiday: Thanksgiving
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 15, 2009
This is a little Thanksgiving pattern activity that DD worked on last week. It’s from mathwire.com.
I put out a piece of contact paper (sticky side up) withsome crinkled pieces of tissue paper. I thought ED wouldhave fun making some art. There happened to be a coupleof craft match sticks and cut up straws in the bowl. WhenI turned around, ED was placing them vertically on thepaper! I was impressed at her three-dimensional picture. A little while later she had just as much fun destroyingher masterpiece.
Ages 2-6: Toddler/Preschool Activities / Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 1, 2009
I raved about Honey’s website a couple of days ago, but wanted to mention a couple of pages I found particularly useful that I don’t think I mentioned before. She had a very useful post about the websites she likes that have activities for toddlers: http://sunflowerschoolhouse.com/toddler-activities/ Also, I printed these brick building cards (Lego projects) and cut them so that there were two cards on each piece of paper. The...
We finally put together DD’s flower book. This is a bunchof activities that we put together in a booklet using acomb binder. Activities came from http://www.play2learnprintables.com/Theme%20Page.htmhttp://www.childcareland.com/free.htmlandhttp://kidssoup.com/ (and perhaps one more, but I can’t remember off the topof my head)
The cute flower counting clothes pin cards were fromhttp://www.play2learnprintables.com/flowers.htm For her booklet, I made a lot of pocket pages by staplingtwo pages together.
For once, this is an activity that I thoughtup! Many people have talked about dyeingnoodles with rubbing alcohol. I didn’t likethat idea because ED puts everything in hermouth. So–I tried dyeing the noodles withvinegar and food coloring. I left them in thevinegar/coloring solution for about 3-5 minutes,then dried them overnight. I took a bunch of skewers and cut off the sharptips, put them together with a rubber band.Then I wove...
I made this with help from DD and LD a while back to useat Kindergym (we had a “Under the Sea” theme for a fewweeks). I’ve put this on the shelf for ED and added acovered tube to the smaller hole. She’s had fun puttingthe sea creatures into the box and retrieving them.
ED is signing “star” “fish”!
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.
