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Freebies / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Nature / Outdoor Fun
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 6, 2012 · Last modified February 9, 2017
This week was a bit out of the ordinary. We did a skeleton version of school each day. The kids did Math Spelling (we use All About Spelling) Grammar (see yesterday’s post) Independent reading (for about an hour each day) I read a chapter each day from our book on Sir Isaac Newton We worked on our Fifty States song. We’ve been working on that slowly, slowly this entire year....
Freebies / Homeschool Den / Language Arts - Grammar Worksheets / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 5, 2012
Sometimes this doesn’t make as interesting material for a blog post, but we do cover grammar and language arts in addition to All About Spelling (we love, love love this program and it deserves its own post sometime), writing (we often use the Teacher Filebox for this), and First Language Lessons. For basic rules of grammar we use the Write Source Skillsbook as our core (more about that below). We...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Freebies / Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Reading
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 3, 2012 · Last modified November 6, 2016
ED is just now starting to work on simple cvc words. The past week or so, she has been working on -it and -in words. We printed out her own -it and -in books. There’s just one word per page like bit, fit, sit in the -it book or bin, fin, win in the -in book. I sit together with ED as we look over a few pages (we do...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Freebies / Homeschool Den / Math: Preschool Math / Montessori (general info)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 31, 2012 · Last modified March 16, 2019
‘Bead’ Rabbits and Skip Counting by 10 Montessori math has kids working a lot with beads. But for this work, I made some Easter-themed manipulatives for ED to work with. I made a set of Easter eggs for skip-counting by 10s. She also used some 100-square rabbits. I printed out a number of copies and cut them into strips of 10 and into single bunnies as well. It’s just...
Freebies / History: American History / History: American West Unit / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 20, 2012 · Last modified September 19, 2017
As I mentioned yesterday, we’ve been reading a book about a girl who travels West on the Oregon Trail with a group of other families. Since we’ve been reading for quite some time now, I thought we could jump right in and play the Oregon Trail File Folder Game I found at File Folder Fun. I asked them a couple of questions to prepare to play the game in another day...
We’ve been using the fraction chart and a pencil a lot to look at equivalent fractions. I have the kids line up the pencil on 1/2 and then ask them what some equivalent fractions are. We also have spent a lot of time building equivalent fractions with our manipulatives. Again the fraction table pictured below is from Right Start math (a math curriculum that uses Montessori concepts and hands-on math manipulatives and games),...
Freebies / Holiday: Valentine's Day / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 9, 2012 · Last modified January 27, 2016
I came across a Valentine’s Boggle Game at Teacher’s Pay Teachers. I printed it out and much to my surprise both LD and DD loved it. They did it both yesterday and today and then complained that it was too easy the second time. I promised the kids I’d make a new word hunt for them and just finished it this evening. My version is not as cute as the...
Active Math Games / Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Freebies / Holiday: Valentine's Day / Math General Posts / Math--Addition / Math--Division / Math: Preschool Math / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 7, 2012 · Last modified January 22, 2015
Valentine’s Day Division Cards I made a Valentine’s Day set of division cards to use with LD over the next week or so. We use these cards to play a game called Fast Track — an idea we got from Peggy Kaye’s Games for Math. To make the board you need a large piece of butcher paper or poster board. There are three win spaces, three start spaces and various...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool for ED - Fall 2011 (age 3 1/2) / Freebies / Holiday: Valentine's Day
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 5, 2012 · Last modified January 31, 2017
ED has been working a lot on letter sounds and simple -at and -an words. I made this Valentine’s themed word matching activity for her to work on over the next couple of weeks. She has to attach the clothes peg to the matching word on the wheel. It took some cutting pasting to put it together, but if you’d like to make your own you can download the pages...
Freebies / Math General Posts / Math--Multiplication
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 31, 2012
DD is just now learning to skip count by 3s. I made a unicorn and dragon themed game to help her practice. The game is pretty straight forward. Each player takes a turn drawing cards from the file until they get a dragon (STOP!) card. The player then sorts her cards and places them in skip counting order while the other player is drawing cards. The object is to be...
Freebies / Language Arts - Grammar Worksheets / Language Arts: Spelling
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 18, 2012 · Last modified March 20, 2015
Instead of jumping straight back into All About Spelling, I had the kids work on words with silent letters last week. You can find this word sort in the language materials area at Montessori for Everyone. I made a couple of work sheets for DD and LD to do with these. You can download them here if you are interested. You can see the first two pages below. Words with Silent...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool for ED - Fall 2011 (age 3 1/2) / Freebies / Montessori (general info) / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 17, 2012
ED is ready to tackle the teen numbers. She often skips some of the numbers after 13. I am using a homemade version of the Montessori seguin board (download the packet I made here). It’s a board with lots of 10s in a row. The child then places a digit over the zero to make 11, 12, 13, etc. 1) First ED counted the number of animals. 2) Then she...
Freebies / Math General Posts / Math--Addition
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 13, 2011
Find the missing addend activity: Do you ever get attitude when you do certain subjects with your kids?? For some reason, LD has been reluctant to do math from one of his books. Playing games has turned that attitude around (for the time being) and he’s really done some great math work in the past couple of weeks. (We start with games like our beloved Speed! Multiplication Game, the division...
Since LD and I have been playing his division games daily, DD wanted her own board as well. I made one up for her last night so she can work on her sums to 16, 17, 18 and 19. (ie. 8+8, 9+10 and so forth). If you are interested the addition games and cards are found here.
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.
