Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Theme Time (age 2-4) / Arts and Crafts / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats / Science: Vertebrates - Invertebrates
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 9, 2010 · Last modified August 29, 2020
LD: orange chameleon, DD: pink chameleon, Mom: green chameleon, ED: multicolored chameleon. While on the hunt for Eric Carle craft ideas, I went to visit two of my favorite art websites: Deep Space Sparkle and Art Projects for Kids. Art Projects for kids showed a very cute picture of a chameleon. We read this book by Eric Carle: The Mixed-Up Chameleon. (affiliate link) I had the kids watch the slide show at Eric Carle’s Website about...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Theme Time (age 2-4) / Arts and Crafts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 9, 2010
I set out a number of Eric Carle books (and books of asimilar style). Then I rounded up puzzles and gamesthat went along with the characters in his books. I alsoset out a simple craft for the girls which was a big hit. Ihad pre-cut caterpillars, butterflies and tissue paperpieces that they could glue on. Although DD would havebeen fine to cut up the tissue paper, ED would haveinsisted on...
Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Toddler/Preschool Activities / Arts and Crafts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 11, 2010
I set out a couple of activities today with ED in mind, butall the kids participated. Above the kids are makingnecklaces. Below is our seasonal tree. You can always make your own tree out of pipe cleanersif you don’t have a little tree as we did at Christmas timeor find a branch and place it in a vase. http://mymontessorijourney.typepad.com/ has wonderfulseasonal activities like these. If you haven’t already, besure to...
Arts and Crafts / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 9, 2010 · Last modified December 5, 2021
Today in our study of the forest animal habitat we read The Mitten. (affiliate link) We read Jan Brett’s book first. Using the beautiful mitten masks by Jan Brett the kids reenacted the story by putting the animal into the mitten (the kids are holding up the masks in the picture above). The mitten is just a file folder, drawn in the shape of a mitten. Jan Brett’s printables for...
ED and DD just loved this craft!! LD enjoyed it too,but the girls begged to do more because as DD said,“the gems are SOoooo BEAUuuuuutiful!” We made some cornstarch clay with red food dye 1 cup cornstarch1 cup baking soda1/2 cup table salt1 cup water Cook in a sauce pan til it forms a lump (no morethan a few minutes). Roll the dough out, make heart (and other shapes!). Then...
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) / Arts and Crafts / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 1, 2010
This week we’re going to make a diaorama on thedeciduous forest and its animal inhabitants. First wemade deciduous trees. The kids used cut up tissue paperand placed the bits onto contact paper. Then we putgreen paper onto the contact paper and cut out a treeshape. We’ll add a tree trunk later. Our other project today was to make coffee groundsquirrels. The kids decided to use colored sand for thesmaller version...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Toddler/Preschool Activities / Arts and Crafts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 31, 2010
Here’s the finished product of the kids’ arts-and-craftsproject last week. It took two days to dry thoroughly. This was a really good project even for ED (age 2) whocould pretty much do it on her own as long as I remindedher of the steps along the way: Put the spaghetti (or yarn) in the glueStir, stir, stirDump it on your plate
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Toddler/Preschool Activities / Arts and Crafts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 28, 2010
For this activity we needed cooked spaghetti (we usedfettuccine), bits of yarn or string and glue. We had onebowl of plain glue, and a bowl of glue + red food coloringanother with glue/yellow and another with glue/green. This activity worked best when I had them use a fork.My kids didn’t dip it in well enough to get a lot of glue.They really needed to stir it around a bit (and...
Our big project this past week has been making mushroomplay houses. 1) We covered rolled-up cardboard and a balloonwith paper mache. [1/2 cup flour + 1/2 cup water, stirin 2 cups of boiling water; let it cool and then dip thenewspaper and cover]
After lots more steps (attaching the balloon and stemparts with more paper mache, painting them, and coveringit with acrylic sealer) we cut out doors and the realfun began! We did a small step each day and overall ittook a week+ to make. The kids were really proud oftheir mushrooms when they were done.
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.
