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: Organizing and Cleaning / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / How to Start Homeschooling
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 1, 2015 · Last modified December 29, 2018
The holidays are almost over… Two or three (or more!) weeks have gone by since you last “cracked the books”… The “normal” homeschool routine is a thing of the past… Are you feeling ready to start back into homeschooling? Here are some of the things I try to do before we jump back into our homeschool routine. 1) Make Sure You’ve Really Had a Break! If you have spent the...
While Hollywood movies aren’t necessarily “historically accurate,” they do make an impact that sparks people’s interest and encourages people to delve into a subject area in more detail. Here are some classic movies you might consider watching with your family. Remember, to preview the film first to see if it is appropriate for your family. When we have watched some of these classic movies together, there are some scenes I’ve chosen...
Homeschool Den / Uncategorized
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 27, 2014 · Last modified January 13, 2015
Hi Everyone! We are working hard to transfer all our materials from our Parents.com location to our new location here! Please bear with us as we work to get the site up and running. Our appearance will change considerably over the coming days and weeks. We hope to start posting officially here around the first week of January; of course, feel free to browse around through all of our older...
Homeschool Den / Math General Posts / Math--Multiplication / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 27, 2014 · Last modified April 2, 2020
This is a fun way to learn to skip count by 6s! I’ve shared a number of the skip counting mazes, but this clapping game did a lot more for helping ED to remember the 6s. Earlier this fall, I mentioned that ED has been learning to skip count by 4s, 6s and 7s. We made our song into a clapping game too and the girls really had fun with...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 27, 2014 · Last modified December 29, 2014
Have you seen this? I loved this video. What a great reminder to enjoy and cherish our kids!
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 18, 2014 · Last modified December 28, 2014
Every year there are a few Christmas decorations that I absolutely LOVE bringing out! I wanted to share a few of our family favorites! My personal favorites are the ones that include pictures of the kids. One year when the kids were not-quite-2, 4 and 6, I made a holiday picture banner. I took pictures of the kids holding all the letters in Merry Christmas. Then I laminated them and...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 17, 2014 · Last modified December 5, 2021
I made some Christmas skip counting mazes for my daughter and printed them out for her math notebook. She loved them! You’ll find skip counting pages for the 2s through the 7s. You can move in any direction including diagonally. If you are interested you can download them and use them with your kids as well! Kids will practice skip counting by 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s, 6s or 7s....
Ages 2-6: Pete the Cat Unit / Homeschool Den / Kindergarten Math / Math--Addition
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 16, 2014 · Last modified December 8, 2018
I made these pages a couple of years ago. They include basic addition practice and a blank sheet for domino math. I’ll have her roll the die and fill in the blanks—and I’ll also use some dominoes and have her fill in the numbers. If you don’t have actual dominoes, you can print the domino set from Mathwire. They even have a add-on set for up to double-nines. I’m hoping to create some subtraction pages...
Ages 2-6: Pete the Cat Unit / Homeschool Den / Math--Division / Math--Multiplication
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 15, 2014 · Last modified February 17, 2016
A couple of years ago I made these Pete the Cat inspired pages for the kids. They love when I make practice pages just for them! 🙂 You can download the Christmas Division Pages here. Meanwhile, I made these sheets for DD when she was working on her multiplication tables from 1s through 5s. (That’s why there is nothing higher than that.) There are six pages — one pages is just multiplication...
Holiday: Christmas Activities / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 14, 2014 · Last modified December 3, 2018
In this post you’ll find free Christmas-themed math cards and various math games you can play with your kids… anyone from 2-10 depending on how you use the cards!! There are lots and lots of different cards games you can play during math time. Here are some of the number cards I made for the kids. They look like this: Ages 2-4: If you have a toddler or preschooler you can...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 13, 2014 · Last modified November 30, 2017
Here are several Christmas-themed math games that I made for ED last year. I’ve printed them out for her again this year and will put them into her workbox for next week. I’ll explain how to play below. The first game is called the Quick Christmas Cross-Off. It’s great for kids who are learning to recognize double-digit numbers. You need the number cards 0 through 9 from five or six different...
Arts and Crafts / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 10, 2014 · Last modified December 29, 2014
I’ve been falling down on the job… I realized I could create a much more inspiring environment. When the kids were little, we did a lot of Montessori activities. One of the concepts that Maria Montessori emphasized was having a prepared environment. A prepared environment, she believed, supports a child’s natural desire to learn. As the NAMC website put it, in a prepared environment “everything the child came in contact...
I’m so grateful that homeschooling is legal in all 50 states here in America. In fact, the numbers of homeschooled children continues to increase around the country. But that isn’t the case everywhere. Homeschooling has been banned in Germany since Adolf Hitler was in power. Germany requires that all children go to their public schools. In fact, a 2007 decision in Germany found that homeschooling “may constitute a misuse of the...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 24, 2014 · Last modified November 17, 2015
These days I tend to write about our activities in separate posts, but occasionally I like to talk about the flow of our homeschool in general. We have had a busy fall — not just because the kids are involved in a lot of activities, but also fitting in the other things that take up time (trips, doctors appointments, and on and on!). We made a conscious decision to (try...
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.
