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Homeschool Den / Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Homeschooling in the News / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published July 29, 2013 · Last modified January 28, 2018
People are often curious why homeschoolers have chosen this route. After all, the vast majority of people choose to send their children to public school. On the other hand, there are now more children being home-schooled than are enrolled in charter and voucher schools combined. I read recently that there are now over 2 million homeschooled children. In 1999, three reasons for homeschooling were the most frequently cited: 49 percent...
There have been quite a number of homeschool-related articles in the past couple of weeks: A German homeschooling family that has been living in Tennessee for several years has been seeking asylum in the U.S. because homeschooling is not allowed in their native country of Germany. They withdrew their children from German schools because the school teachings on sex, violence and other issues conflicted with their Christian faith. They face...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Organizing and Cleaning / Nature / Outdoor Fun
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published July 23, 2013
I remember reading once that you are never supposed to write about not blogging. “Boring!” someone said. I still feel the need to apologize or explain the infrequent posts, though! We’re still in summer mode and while I think I’ve more-or-less hammered out our fall semester and have been busy browsing and purchasing books, scoping out cool science experiments and activities, making some worksheets and games for our units, I’ve felt...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published July 18, 2013
We’re in the home stretch of summer vacation. It’s very hot (very, very hot!) so we’re spending a lot of time indoors. At times the kids play like angels. Their creativity is inspiring. Their music and shows are lovely. Other times? They argue and are at each other’s throats. Nasty words come out. Tears run like Niagara Falls. What do we do to help alleviate that sibling bickering? I notice...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Freebies / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Language Arts: Reading / Must Read / Science
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published July 10, 2013 · Last modified June 23, 2015
I am trying to do some general organizing this summer for the next school year. I’ve been trying to figure out what science units we’ll do this next year and also wanted to be sure that I’m covering some fun/basic information with the kids. My oldest loved science from very early on and we added lots and lots of books to read aloud when he was in preschool-kindergarten. At the...
Homeschool: Organizing and Cleaning / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Homeschool: Random Thoughts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published July 6, 2013 · Last modified July 10, 2016
I love our breaks! I really, really need time to re-group and get refreshed for another semester. This is probably as important a part of our homeschooling life as when we are going full-tilt with science experiments and history projects! Right now I’m spending a lot of time taking care of myself (reading!!), tackling the house (getting up to my elbows re-organizing and cleaning) and working on the yard (weeding...
Freebies / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 21, 2013
Since I am wrapping up the school year, I thought I would go through and share some of the most popular posts from this school year. Most of them had to do with some of the free materials I made, but two of them had to do with family life in general–3-The Most Stressful Number of Kids and the post I wrote just after our beloved Vovo, hubby’s grandmother, died — The...
Homeschool Den / Homeschooling in the News / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 20, 2013
A couple of days ago, NPR ran a story on All Things Considered about how homeschool students in some states are fighting to play on public school teams. It is an issue fraught with emotion and politics. The laws vary state to state. Policies are changing from year to year. In fact just in the past two or three years, there has been a lot of legislation being considered by...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 19, 2013 · Last modified May 16, 2016
This is such a fun post to write! This is where I get to reminisce and think about the amazing year we’ve had. It has been a blast… tiring at times (particularly in February when LD had a lot of out-of-town gymnastics meets, I had lots of meetings and was training for a half-marathon). But looking back, we had a fulfilling, successful year. We do a lot of our activities...
According to a new study, America’s universities are failing to adequately train the people who become teachers each year. The study by National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) found that most teacher education programs are lacking. They studied more than 1,100 university education programs. The NCTQ blog said, “Our results show that most [programs] have a long way to go to get teachers classroom ready from day one.” The study points out that...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Math: Preschool Math / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 17, 2013 · Last modified January 28, 2018
Each year at the end of the year, I put together a post that looks back at our school year. ED has had a great year. She was 4 this year and turned 5 this spring. We homeschool together… so ED participates with my older two kids in all their activities. Some of these units (like the 5 senses) were mainly for ED, others were mainly for the older kids, but...
After I dropped the older kids off for their art class on Wednesday, ED and I headed home. On the way, we were traveling on a bustling 4 lane road. As I drove down the road I noticed an older gentleman (mid-to-late 70s) who was slowly sitting down on the curb next to his lawn mower. He reached down with one hand to help himself get down onto the grass....
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Random Thoughts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 13, 2013
Today I listened to an interview with Peter Gray, a psychologist who examines the importance of play over at the (free online) unschooling summit. Despite yesterday’s post, Summer Learning, where I talked about the academic focus of our homeschool, the truth is my children play a lot especially compared to their public school friends. After listening to his interview and cruising some of the articles he posted on his website, Freedom...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 12, 2013
One question homeschoolers often ask each other is, “Will you do school during the summer?” For us, the answer is… some of the time. We take vacations when it suits us even when (or maybe especially when!) public school kids are in school. We also take vacation trips in the summer since some of our the kids’ cousins don’t homeschool and we try to catch up with them once a...
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.
