Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Arts and Crafts / History: Africa Unit / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 22, 2013 · Last modified March 16, 2016
This year we have been studying world cultures focusing primarily on Africa. We started out with some basic facts about Africa and then moving on to Egypt including a study of Ancient Egypt. From there we studied the Islam and its history. We learned about the spread of Islam and moved on to a study the countries of northern Africa. We looked at some of the beautiful examples of Moroccan...
Arts and Crafts / Homeschool Den / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 24, 2013 · Last modified June 12, 2017
The kids spent a couple of weeks learning about perspective in their art class. Even ED did her own drawing! They came home with some really pretty art work! Here is LD working on his homework for art class: The kids used oil pastels to add color to their drawings. If you are interested in doing a lesson on perspective with your kids here are a couple good resources:...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Preschool for ED - Fall 2011 (age 3 1/2) / Arts and Crafts / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 18, 2013 · Last modified March 16, 2016
We made some play dough together at the beginning of the week and ED has been playing with it every single morning! Play dough is really easy to make and has a wonderful consistency. Here’s how we made made ours: 1 cup flour 1/3 cup salt 1 Tablespoon Cream of Tartar (in the spice aisle of your grocery store) 1 Tablespoon oil 1 cup of near boiling water almost...
Arts and Crafts / Holiday: Christmas Activities / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Science
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 6, 2012 · Last modified March 16, 2016
There are so many last minute gifts to get…your child’s secret buddy, your niece, your neighbor’s son, the giving tree or your child’s best friend. Here are a couple of unique gifts we’ve given out because they were such HUGE hits with our own kids. 4- to 8-year-old girl The past month, my kids have been obsessed with fuzzy felt friends. We sent this kit as a gift to my 5-year-old (almost...
It’s that crazy time of year, isn’t it? This is the time of year when I have to look at the broad scope of learning and not focus on the spelling that doesn’t get done one day or the units that I’m dying to get into, but we can’t seem to find enough time at home to delve into them! Is it that way for you? On the other hand,...
Arts and Crafts / History: Africa Unit / History: Ancient Egypt / History: World Religions / Homeschool Den / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 28, 2012 · Last modified March 16, 2016
I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. Ours was truly wonderful. I love Thanksgiving because its a time to focus on family and the best part is the dinnertime conversation about what we are thankful for. The kids have such precious things on their minds! Anyway, we’re back to school now—and we’re finishing up some pretty fun projects. We had stepped away from our Ancient Egypt unit for several...
Arts and Crafts / Holiday: Christmas Activities / Homeschool Den / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 24, 2012
I noticed that people have been viewing some of my holiday posts this weekend. Last year I posted our holiday crafts way too late to be of much use, but wanted to share this beautiful star craft we made last year early enough that you could round up the supplies you need to do this with your kids (toothpicks, gold spray paint). Click here to see the post about how...
Ages 2-6: Fall Theme / Arts and Crafts / Homeschool Den / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 10, 2012 · Last modified October 16, 2016
The last time we did spaghetti art, we simply colored strands different colors and made a free for all. This time, we had a specific goal in mind… barren trees. They turned out well! Cook spaghetti and cool with cold water. Mix glue and paint together. Dip the spaghetti into the glue-paint mixture and form into the desired shape We placed ours on wax paper, but you could also...
Ages 2-6: Fall Theme / Arts and Crafts / Homeschool Den / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 6, 2012
If your kids are home for election day, this is a quick craft that smells great!! These ornaments are SO easy to make and smell wonderful! The last time we made these (3 or 4 years ago!), we made them for our Christmas tree, but with the smell of cinnamon and nutmeg I thought they’d be the perfect craft for the fall season! We made them into necklaces and also...
Ages 2-6: Fall Theme / Arts and Crafts / Homeschool Den / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 2, 2012 · Last modified March 17, 2016
The scent of this playdough brought even my 9-year-old running! So much for the schoolwork that was supposed to get done while ED was happily playing! I had to change course and do some read-alouds while the kids were occupied. Here’s how we made it: 1 cup flour 1/3 cup salt 1 1/2 tsp cloves 1 1/2 or 2 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp nutmeg 1 Tablespoon Cream of Tartar 1 Tablespoon...
LD has been gone most afternoons so the girls and I have been doing various crafts and activities together. Yesterday we pulled out the Model Magic. It’s just such a great material to work with, I thought it was worth another mention. It is soft and pliable and it is easy even for my four year old to mix and blend colors. It is self-hardening and clean to work with. ...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Arts and Crafts / History: American History / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published July 2, 2012 · Last modified June 9, 2018
These stars are wonderful for decorating your garden for Independence Day! We took a heavy duty paper plate and cut out a star. Then you decorate the star with toothpicks. As you can see we broke the ends of lots of the toothpicks to get the lengths we wanted. After the glue dried, we painted the stars. We used spray paint (and you can tell I didn’t get the hang...
We don’t have the kids enrolled in any formal art program nor am I an artist! I have really benefited from the expertise of an art teacher named Kathy who shares the projects and lessons she does with her elementary students at Art Projects for Kids. If you are looking for some wonderful lessons to do with your kids this summer, you might want to check out Kathy’s website. You...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Arts and Crafts / Homeschool Den / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats / Science: Ocean Unit / Science: Whale Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 26, 2012 · Last modified April 30, 2016
Have you ever started a unit and then something else unfolds? Well this is a unit I started to put together on the Arctic. You might even recall that we covered Antarctica for a couple of days to lead up to this unit. The more we got into it, the more this turned into a full blown study of whales! We spent more than a week reading, doing experiments and...
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.
