Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Homeschool Den / Language Arts - Grammar Worksheets / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 13, 2014 · Last modified January 18, 2017
In a blog post a few weeks ago, I talked about why we use the writing workshop and how it works. But this year, I also added in Journal Prompt Writing as part of their checklist of things to do. Here’s why. ED started writing with us right from the start (even before she officially started kindergarten.) She enjoys writing, but her “stories” are always about a cat (or dog...
Ages 2-6: Fall Theme / Holiday: Thanksgiving / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 11, 2014 · Last modified March 10, 2016
I’m always SO grateful for the educators who share their materials for free! I thought I would update a post from last year to include some new materials from around the web. This tot activity caught my eye — it’s very cute and is free over at Totschooling. Cute Turkey Math Game: The matching activity above reminded me of a game I played with all three of the kids when...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Month in Review
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 9, 2014 · Last modified January 3, 2015
Our month of posts, October 2014: I thought it might be helpful to have a list of posts you may have missed. 1. Learning about the Solar System (Hands-On Kit the Kids Loved) 2. Earth Science: Timeline of Earth Activity 3. Free German Worksheet Packet on Animals 4. States of Matter: Solid, Liquid, Gas — Learning Activities 5. Free Fall Themed Activity Packs for 3-6 Year Olds 6. Earth Science: Layers...
Oops–I stand corrected. Someone said that “The ‘get notifications’ pertains to when someone responds to a post, and you respond to that post – you’ll get notified up at the top of the page. In order to get posts from the page to show in your feed you have to make sure you are “following” it.” 🙂 ~Liesl —————– As many of you may know, Facebook has changed the way...
History: Native American Indians Unit / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 7, 2014 · Last modified May 16, 2016
I got a little behind posting because it took so long to share our experiences visiting with Pocahontas’s Great-Great-Great (12th Great) Granddaughter. In the meantime, we’ve done another entire portion of our Native American unit. We learned about the Seminole Indians, their culture and removal (for many of them) from Florida. And, we also learned about the culture and tragic history of the Cherokee people. We started the unit with a...
Homeschool Den / Kindergarten Math / Math General Posts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 6, 2014 · Last modified April 15, 2015
ED has been working on coins this fall. She’s doing pretty well and I thought I’d combine her growing coin-counting abilities with her love of Minecraft. In fact, this past weekend she did her very first sewing project on her own using the sewing machine — the creeper which is in the photo below! Just print out the printable below on cardstock and place a paper clip on top....
History: American History / History: Native American Indians Unit / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 4, 2014 · Last modified January 1, 2015
Imagine holding museum quality artifacts… some over 400 years old!! That was our afternoon with Pocahontas’s Great-Great-Great (12th Great) Granddaughter, a member of the Powhatan Nation. The kids and I were greeted at the door, by Ms. Angie who was wearing traditional dress. Everything about our visit was fabulous! “Welcome to my yehakin,” she said as she ushered us into her home. Yehakin (pronounced yee-HAW-kin), she explained to the kids, was...
Do you homeschool in the car and on the go? Lots of family use time in the car to learn a new language, learn about history, listen to stories. Then you hear about the homeschoolers who do extraordinary things for extended periods of time. In the spring and into the summer I followed the adventures of a homeschooling family that hiked the entire length of the Appalachian Trail. That’s 2,000...
Freebies / Holiday: Halloween / Homeschool Den / Math--Division / Math--Fractions / Math--Multiplication
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 28, 2014 · Last modified November 2, 2022
Fun Halloween Freebies (with links to free Halloween printables for younger kids too)! I have made the kids lots and lots of fun math worksheets over the years! Below you’ll find free Halloween PDFs for multiplication and division and for fraction practice. They are free to download if you can use them. Plus, I’ve added in a dozen other Halloween and Fall Freebies you might find helpful… from addition and...
Holiday: Halloween / Homeschool Den / Science Experiments
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 27, 2014 · Last modified June 25, 2015
A couple of years ago, we did some spooky science with dry ice. We’re going to do some of these activities again this week, but I thought I’d share some of the things we did then in case you want to try these activities with your kids. I went out and bought some dry ice and we did a number of experiments. You can see suggestions from Steve Spangler science and a...
If you live on the East Coast of the USA you should step outside this evening (6:45pm) to see the Antares Rocket being launched. This is a private rocket built by the commercial space flight company, Orbital Sciences. The launch is a commercial resupply mission for NASA. It will be bringing supplies to the International Space Station. It will launch from the Mid-Atlantic spaceport pad at Wallops Island (off the...
Learning Sign Language for Older Kids (and Parents!) Several of the high schools around here offer ASL as one of languages students can learn in school. I have my own reasons for wanting the kids to learn American Sign Language with me… The past couple of months, I have struggled to come to terms with becoming completely deaf in one ear. I have been hard of hearing since I was in...
History: Geologic Timeline (Montessori) / Homeschool Den / Science / Science: Earth Science Unit / Science: Rocks and Minerals
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 21, 2014 · Last modified July 19, 2018
We spent about a week learning about Earth’s four eons and most recent eras. Today I wanted to share several of the activities we did to go along with this part of our unit. As you may recall, we reviewed the planets in the Solar System, talked about the age of the Earth (4.6 Billion years) and did an impressionistic activity to show how short human history actually is compared to...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Nature / Outdoor Fun / Trips We've Taken
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 20, 2014
Sometimes our family is on such fast-forward speed, I have trouble getting to everything I want to. I have a list of about 10 blog posts to write (we’ve done such great things in our homeschool lately!)… but somehow life gets in the way of actually putting pen to paper — errr… fingers to keyboard! Happily, it’s fun stuff that’s getting in the way these days (rather than all my...
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.
