Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
DD’s workbox had this really great matching activity. Ithink it’s from the Teacher Book Bag. DD had to matchthe ingredient to it’s source (butter-cow; flour – wheat). It’s similar to the Where Things Come From activity thatyou can download free at Montessori for Everyone, butthis particular activity has all the basic cookie ingredients(including baking soda, salt, etc.) Since we bake a lot hereat our house, it is a great activity...
It’s been in the back of my mind for ages, but we finallymade butter today. DD poured cream into a plasticcontainer. We added (clean) marbles. It took a lot ofshaking, but it turned out well. Yum! Also part of DD’s workbox was a cute game called“Cooking Cookies” where you have to turn over all theingredients for your cookie, just make sure you don’tget a rotten egg or you have to...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Toddler/Preschool Activities / Arts and Crafts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 6, 2010
It’s been a few weeks since I’ve brought out the felt board.ED and DD have enjoyed playing with the hearts I madefor them. The flowers and butterflies are just patches that Ihappened to have around in my sewing stuff. We made our own felt board out of two painting canvases;it folds in half for storage and is about 2 feet square.You can check out how I made it here and...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Arts and Crafts / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 5, 2010
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Arts and Crafts / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 5, 2010
We continued working on the little crafts for our forestdioramas last week. We learned a bit about owls andmade this little craft (using Styrofoam, felt and fabricpaint).
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Arts and Crafts / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 5, 2010
We also learned about foxes this week. Our fox was primarily a sewing craft. We used feltand did a few stitches to form a nose. Then theysewed the head onto the body with a few stitches. They pulled knotted embroidery thread throughto make whiskers. The tail was also sewed on, but we wound up justgluing the legs on (there was only so much sewingDD wanted to do!) The ears and...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Music / Outdoor Fun / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 4, 2010
I love music and it has always been a big part of my life.I play the oboe, guitar and piano and am learning thedulcimer. LD started learning the piano earlier this year and isdoing really well. Still, I wanted the girls to get to sing,dance and enjoy music as well. I set aside two differenttimes to do music activities during the week. One ismore for ED and the other is...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Music / Outdoor Fun
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 4, 2010
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Music / Outdoor Fun / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 4, 2010
In keeping with our forest theme, we’ve played thisfun game outside the past few days. The object is to grabthe squirrel’s tail while protecting your own. In ourversion we each had a couple of tails to start out with! FOX AND RABBIT GAME: Another good game we played this week was the “Fox andRabbit” Game (from Family Fun website). Two players areblind folded. One is the fox and has to...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 2, 2010
I wanted to share a couple of things that are workingreally well for us for handwriting. I had heard aboutsandpaper letters. In fact, I’ve heard that a lot of peoplehave made their own. I decided to buy sandpaper letters(ours are from didax.com). I have found them SO helpful.Both LD and DD enjoy doing them and it helps LD withsome of the letters he hasn’t been forming properly. I wish I...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Toddler/Preschool Activities
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 2, 2010
Grandpa also sent us some pattern blocks when he sentthe sandpaper (tactile) letters. ED and DD have reallybeen enjoying them a lot! We found lots of free patternblock printables at http://prekinders.com/pattern-blocks/I printed them in color on one side and black and whiteon the other (to make it more challenging for DD).
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / History: Geography Activities / Science / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 1, 2010 · Last modified March 22, 2016
Today we started our big unit on biomes (deserts, forests, tundra, etc.) and animal habitats. I’m so excited about the pin map I made! I bought the picture cards set of biomes from http://teacherdesk.info/ (for $2.00 US). I printed them out along with some of the smaller photos. (See the photo below this post.) I printed out the world biome map and the key from http://www.science-house.org/workshops/buncombe/Mazzei/index.html Then I combined the...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / History: Geography Activities / Science / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 1, 2010
The biomes picture pack came with 30 cards, flow charts and more.
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / History: Geography Activities / Science / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 1, 2010 · Last modified March 22, 2016
World Biomes Pin Map – Rain Forest, Desert, Savanna, Tundra and More For the map and pieces to this map click the link above!! I was pretty excited with how this turned out! I made this over the Christmas holidays and have been itching to show the kids. What do you think?!! This is the full version, but I’ll be using it piece-meal as we cover a new biome. Again, continue on to this...
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.
