Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Homeschool Den / Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Random Thoughts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 6, 2015 · Last modified November 23, 2016
I spend a lot of time thinking about homeschooling, do you? I find myself mulling over what we have planned or what units we’ll be doing down the road or what didn’t get done or things we did do, but didn’t go as planned… and on and on! But here are some things I probably need to hear a bit more often! Believe in yourself – You can do this!...
History: American Colonies / History: American History / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 5, 2015 · Last modified September 19, 2023
As many of you know, we spent the past six or eight weeks learning about the events leading up to the American Revolution. One of the best ways for kids to learn is for them to actively engage with the material. I used to teach American History classes overseas and at the end of each unit we would put on a play for the parents. I would always write the...
Homeschool Den / Science Experiments / Science: Chemistry Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 29, 2015 · Last modified May 9, 2022
Today, I want to share the three more chemistry activities we did during our unit on chemistry for my youngest, who is currently 7. Mixtures Un-Mixing: Chromatography DNA Kit Earlier this week, I shared the first two science experiments we did, and you can find those here (and in the free pdf printable at the bottom of this post): Matter is Neither Created Nor Destroyed (Molecules switch atoms) – Chapter...
Homeschool Den / Language Arts - Grammar Spelling Reading Writing Categories
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 28, 2015 · Last modified February 24, 2016
We are spending a couple of weeks on grammar rules again. We are going to review some of the basic rules about capitalization. This should be fairly straight-forward for my older two. Some of this will be new for ED, so I’ll sit down with her to work on these together. Some of the rules we’re covering include: Capitalize the first word of every sentence Capitalize the first word in...
Homeschool Den / Science Experiments / Science: Chemistry Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 26, 2015 · Last modified May 9, 2022
This semester we’ve been doing a Chemistry Unit for science. We tend to do our science and history units together. In the next two posts, I wanted to share some of the activities I did that were more geared toward my youngest (my older kids have done these before). Then after that I will share the chemistry materials my older two (grades 5 and 7) have used as we’ve delved...
Holiday: Halloween / Homeschool Den / Math--Addition
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 25, 2015
Today I would like to share another free Halloween packet of math worksheets and games. This contains free addition and subtraction worksheets. Since everyone’s kids are at different levels, I included some very basic/beginning addition worksheets that cover +2 facts as well as doubling (2+2, 3+3, 4+4…) as well as sheets that go into carrying or borrowing. There are about twenty pages, so hopefully there are a few sheets your...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 22, 2015 · Last modified October 25, 2018
Have you noticed that the longer you talk, the more the kids’ attention wanders? People’s brains stay sharply focused only for short periods… I think I’ve read figures of between 10 and 20 minutes for average kids. But of course, the more interested you are in a subjects, the better able you are to sustain attention. The key to education then is transforming students from passive receivers of information to...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 21, 2015 · Last modified February 9, 2020
Are you practicing clothing, shopping and colors in German with your kids? These are the worksheets and cards we used for this unit. As many of you know, we are studying German as our foreign language. (Why German? I studied German in high school and college, so it’s the language I’m most comfortable helping the kids learn.) This semester, we have daily conversation practice built into our day. I made...
Holiday: Halloween / Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 19, 2015 · Last modified September 25, 2018
With Halloween coming up and the house decorated with creepy spider webs and stuff, it’s the perfect time to dabble in writing scary stories! I thought I would share the materials I made for the kids for our Writing Workshop. This lesson was all about Writing Scary Stories! Before they delved in to writing their story, I wanted to spend some time talking about what makes a story creepy. Scary...
History: American Colonies / History: American History / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 16, 2015 · Last modified January 4, 2020
There are lots of wonderful books and movies for kids about the American Revolution. In this post, I’m going to highlight some of the resources we used during our American Revolution Unit. Our kids are currently elementary and middle school age: 7, (almost) 10 and 12. You might be interested in our packet, American Revolution Unit. Click here for more details: Books and Resources we used for this unit study:...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Random Thoughts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 15, 2015
To become an expert, I’ve heard it takes 10,000 hours of hard work and practice. But, it also takes a special teacher, coach or mentor to get to that elite level. Just as top Olympic coaches help motivate and train their athletes by keeping track of every work out and by designing plans and drills that work, we homeschoolers/educators keep track of our kids’ learning, observe their strengths and weaknesses...
Elem-Children's Music 1 (6 yr old) / Homeschool Den / Music
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 14, 2015 · Last modified October 12, 2015
This past week, we talked quite a bit about different music symbols such as treble clef, base clef, natural sign, flat and sharp symbols, crescendo, quarter notes, half notes, etc. etc. (We also went over various notes as we’ve done previous weeks, though I won’t talk about those activities this week.) We played Music Bingo (the easy version). For the link to this and other free music activities, see our...
Homeschool Den / Math--Multiplication
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 13, 2015 · Last modified October 12, 2015
Today I have a freebie for you. My kids still love playing Minecraft… and ED likes the Minecraft themed math worksheet characters I made. So, here’s yet another set of Minecraft math worksheets! I made these for practicing multiplication by 7s (for beginners). ED knows the “song” for skip-counting by 7s. We sing the 7s to the tune of Row, Row, Row Your Boat: 7, 14 21 28, 35 42...
Homeschool Den / Math--Multiplication
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 7, 2015 · Last modified February 13, 2017
The past week or so, ED has been playing some online multiplication games to work on her math facts. I wanted to highlight some of the ones she has been having fun with. My girls’ favorite from multiplication.com is called Fairy Fun. The picture adds more and more detail as you answer the problems correctly. You can highlight more than one set of multiplication facts (you could select 2s, 3s 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.
