Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
History: American History / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Trips We've Taken
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 28, 2012 · Last modified August 18, 2016
Over the course of the week we met families from Georgia, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Ohio and New York who had come Colonial Williamsburg for the homeschool experience. During homeschool week they had lots (and lots) of children’s activities. Every activity we went to was absolutely terrific and educational. Here are some of the things we attended during the week: We did both the normal orientation walk as well...
History: American History / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Trips We've Taken
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 27, 2012 · Last modified August 18, 2016
We’ve heard wonderful things about the homeschool programs in Colonial Williamsburg in some of the yahoo groups. For two weeks in September, there are programs especially for homeschoolers. They offered discount tickets for homeschoolers and their families and have lots of programs and experiences geared specifically for kids. This year we decided to go with some close friends of ours to check things out. You can spend lots...
Freebies / History: Africa Unit / Homeschool Den / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 7, 2012 · Last modified February 17, 2016
As I’ve mentioned before, we are studying World Cultures this year and are starting with Africa. Last week we started with some basic facts and the geography of Africa. We’re using a really terrific basic textbook on Africa that has lots of pictures and is wonderful for the ages of my kids. The first few days we worked through this Africa Learning Packet I created that was loosely related to the...
History: Native American Indians Unit / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Nature / Outdoor Fun
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 14, 2012 · Last modified December 16, 2018
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about finding an ‘arrowhead‘ (really a hafted knife point) in the woods right behind our house. Yesterday morning we had the county archaeologist over to survey the site where we found the hafted knife. He examined it closely and said it was most likely a Piscataway Stemmed Point. We then took him into the woods to show him the site where it...
History: Geologic Timeline (Montessori) / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Outdoor: Fossils / Science / Science: Dinosaurs Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 11, 2012
This might be of interest to the dinosaur-loving tots (and parents!) out there. This news from last month passed me by until a couple of days ago. Did you hear that a new species of feathered dinosaur was discovered in Bavaria, in Southern Germany? The fossil of a Sciurumimus albersdoerferi, a carnivorous dinosaur that lived about 150 million years ago in the late Jurassic period shows the first evidence of feathered theropod dinosaurs that are...
History: American History / History: American West Unit / History: Native American Indians Unit / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Nature / Outdoor Fun / Outdoor: Fossils
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published July 30, 2012 · Last modified December 15, 2018
I’ve been bursting at the seams to write this post, but wanted to wait til I had more information before sharing our excitement! Can you believe, we found an arrowhead on our property?! Okay, so technically it’s not an arrowhead, more about that in a second. The first thing we did was start googling to find out more information. I really didn’t know too much about arrowheads. I was...
History: American West Unit / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Trips We've Taken
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published July 13, 2012
My in-laws happen to live right near Branson, Missouri. It’s quite a tourist destination… there are shows of every description… magic shows, country shows, dancing, live music, the Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede, Chinese Acrobats, the art of Kung Fu, blues, the Brady Bunch, a tribute to the Eagles, gospel music and on and on and on. Driving down the main thoroughfare there are fun places everywhere. It is a great...
History: American History / History: American West Unit / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Trips We've Taken
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published July 10, 2012
We actually stumbled across this museum, but what a FABULOUS place to visit. Just had to shout that out, it was *that* good! From the time Arkansas became a state in 1836 to the mid 1940s cotton production was common in the Arkansas River lowlands. Men, women and children could be seen picking and stuffing cotton into long sacks in the fall. Tractors were not used for the preparation, planting,...
History: American History / History: Native American Indians Unit / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Trips We've Taken
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published July 9, 2012 · Last modified January 1, 2015
For the past two and a half weeks, I was on the road with the kids (we left hubby home working for much of the time). In yesterday’s post I talked about traveling with the kids in a general way. We did SO much on this trip! We visited 18 family members who are strewn throughout the midwest. I did some research before we left and fit in some educational side...
History: American Colonies / History: American History / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published July 4, 2012
If you’re here in the U.S., I hope you have a fun 4th of July! Fireworks have been banned in lots of places because of drought, but so far it’s still a go for us this evening! Why is it we celebrate this day? In June and July 1776, a committee worked on a document that all the thirteen colonies could agree upon that formally told Great Britain that they would...
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...
History: American History / History: This is the United States-Unit Study (grade 1) / Homeschool Den / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 29, 2012
This June marks the bicentennial of the beginning of War of 1812. I saw there were some wonderful events this next week in Boston (I wish we could go!); I’ll share a few details about that below if you live in that area. Anyway, I’ve heard a few things about the War of 1812 on the radio lately and decided I should share some of that information with the kids...
A couple of years ago we bought a geography board game called 10 Days in Europe that has been a wonderful addition to our homeschool. It is so much fun, I really recommend it for anyone looking for a new game to add to your collection. I play this game with my 6 and 8 year olds, though I would say it’s more suited to the 8+ crowd (wonderful even...
History: Ancient Aztecs, Incas and Mayans / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 15, 2012 · Last modified February 17, 2016
Did you know that more than $90 billion a year is spent on chocolate around the world? On Valentine’s American spend around $700 million on chocolate! These numbers are expected to grow as the population increases and the number of people in the developing world who can afford chocolate increases. Part of our study of the Mayans and Aztecs was to learn a bit more about the history of chocolate. ...
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.
