Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
History: Geography Activities / How to Start Homeschooling / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 12, 2014 · Last modified September 22, 2023
There are so many fun things you can do with your kids to help them gain an understanding of the geography of our amazing world! Here are some of the geography activities we use in our homeschool. Over the years we have made maps… with sand, dirt and grass seed like our Nile River Valley Out of clay, like our Ancient Greece (and Mediterranean Sea) map (Ancient Greece Geography Project, Ancient Greece...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / How to Start Homeschooling / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 11, 2014 · Last modified February 22, 2015
When we first started homeschooling, I read The Well Trained Mind. The thought of covering history in four year cycles sounded like a wonderful way to approach history. After all, the kids would build on their former knowledge… learning about the ancient world several times, but going into more depth each time round. History was broken into these four year cycles: Ancients Middle Ages and Early Renaissance Late Renaissance/Early Modern...
Active Math Games / Freebies / Homeschool Den / How to Start Homeschooling / Math General Posts / Must Read / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 7, 2014 · Last modified March 23, 2017
This is the second part in my talk about math curriculums. In the previous post, not only did I list some of the better known homeschool math curriculums, but I shared 15+ ideas for making math engaging and fun! (Math Curriculums and Active Engaging Math Activities) Today I wanted to share some of the materials I’ve made for the kids. I’ve found that the kids really enjoy when I make...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / How to Start Homeschooling / Kindergarten Math / Math General Posts / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 6, 2014 · Last modified March 10, 2016
In this series, I thought I’d try to offer new homeschoolers a starting point for finding homeschool curriculums that works for your family. Today I’ll be talking about math. It’s sometimes tricky to find the curriculum that works well for you and your kids. It’s helpful to ask around (online and in your community) to see what will work for your child. If you can go to a homeschool curriculum...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / How to Start Homeschooling / Must Read / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 5, 2014 · Last modified March 17, 2016
I’ve been asked fairly regularly, “How do you know what to teach the kids?” That is definitely a daunting task, especially if you are pulling your child out of public/private school mid-year. Homeschool does not have to look like traditional school and there’s no rule saying that learning has to come from books or a certain set of books. There are a lot of homeschool curriculum options out there… and...
Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / How to Start Homeschooling / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 4, 2014 · Last modified March 18, 2016
When parents are thinking about homeschooling, they want to know exactly “how to start.” That’s such a huge question I’ve actually written a book… or rather, most of a book. It’s about 200 pages and I’m still not quite done! But I still want to write a shorter blog post to help those parents wondering what to do to get started homeschooling. First things first, make sure you find out...
Homeschool: Organizing and Cleaning / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / How to Start Homeschooling / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 1, 2014 · Last modified August 2, 2015
The back to school sales are starting up where we live… and across the other side of the country, the kids’ cousins are back in the classroom next week. With that in mind, I thought it was time to share our homeschool shopping list. We try to top up on various supplies while the back-to-school sales are on. Here are some of the things that we use in our...
Homeschool Den / How to Start Homeschooling / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published July 31, 2014 · Last modified April 10, 2015
This is the question our family gets asked most often… or some variation of it… Will you homeschool through high school? How will you teach the tough subjects like calculus? My son will be entering 6th grade this year… In our area he would be entering middle school. DD is a 4th grader and ED will be in 1st grade. (You know, we’re homeschoolers so really they do work on...
Homeschool Den / How to Start Homeschooling / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published July 30, 2014 · Last modified June 26, 2015
As I start off this series, I realize there might be some readers who are fairly new to our blog. I thought I’d share how we got started homeschooling (and blogging about our adventures). Homeschooling was on our radar even before we had kids. My older sister had kids before we did. They decided to homeschool their kids just about the time we had our son, LD. Also, my cousin...
Freebies / Homeschool: Organizing and Cleaning / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published July 28, 2014
Behind the scenes, I have been starting to plan out our fall semester. One thing I wanted right away was a calendar packet. I made one last spring and found it really useful. I printed out two copies. One is for our school schedule. I will pencil in our units and trips to see what the semester will look like. The calendar includes various holidays since we’ll be reviewing some...
Family Meeting / Games for Thinking and Learning / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published July 8, 2014 · Last modified April 10, 2016
In family life, love is the oil that eases friction, the cement that binds closer together, and the music that brings harmony. — Eva Burrows Does your family hold a regular family meeting? We started holding one a couple of years ago and started some traditions that are still family favorites… “candle night,” the “smiley under the plate” and getting downright silly with the kids in “knock your socks off.”...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 10, 2014 · Last modified June 18, 2020
Yesterday I shared the end-of-year questionnaire I wrote up for the kids. There are some end-of-year things that I need to think about as well. Not only is it time to reflect on some of the things that went well (or didn’t), but it’s also time to take stock of what we/I need to do to get ready for next year. I’ll jot down supplies we need, things I need to...
Homeschool: Planning and Preparation
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 9, 2014 · Last modified June 18, 2020
The end of the school year is coming up quickly. I usually take some time to reflect how the year went for our family. We’ll talk about some of the things we covered this year… everything from really diving into the Writing Workshop for the first time to our huge units on India, Gandhi, the Civil Rights Movement and China… plus our science units on Simple Machines, Weather, Water… our adventures...
My friend and I were having a long conversation about the options open to our kids once they reach high school and beyond. Her son and daughter, ages 9 and 11, just finished a year of chemistry using a college textbook. My friend is beginning to look into the options open to her kids as they continue moving forward academically. She said she felt hopeful and inspired after hearing about...
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.
