Category: Homeschool Den

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Fairy Tale Unit: Jack and the Beanstalk

Last week, I wrote a post about all the books that DD (age 8)  has been reading lately. You may have noticed that she really enjoys fairy tales.  She has read a number of Gail Carson Levine’s books including Ella Enchanted  and Fairest (affiliate links). She also LOVES Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin and Jack: The True Story of Jack and the Beanstalk. (affiliate links)  That got me to thinking about the Fairy Tale...

Ear Surgery #5 – Trying to End my Noise Sensitivity, Autophony, Balance Issues and More 2

Ear Surgery #5 – Trying to End my Noise Sensitivity, Autophony, Balance Issues and More

While we have had a really wonderful few weeks homeschooling, the past several weeks have been extremely challenging for me in other ways.  I never imagined all the medical difficulties I would face. Tomorrow morning (today as you read this), I am going in for my 5th ear surgery since October. Along with other things, I seem to have semi-circular canal dehiscence in the horizontal canal.  My last surgery in...

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Genghis Khan and Kublai Khan — Free Notebook Pages, Books and Resources

Most every kid has heard of Genghis Khan, right? Boy, do we have some good books and videos for you! Plus you can download our free notebook pages about Genghis Khan and Kublai Khan! If you are looking for an engaging unit to do with your kids this summer — this could be it! My kids LOVED this portion of our China unit.  We skipped forward almost 1,000 years (from 200AD...

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Water Unit: Free Worksheets on Water and Water Usage

As I mentioned yesterday, we started a new unit on water (jumping off onto a new tangent for our weather unit).  I made a couple of pages for the kids’ science notebooks. They go along with some of the resources I shared yesterday. I had the kids try to brainstorm as many uses for water as they could and then had them study a printout of the USGA water use poster...

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Books and Series My 8-Yr Old Has Been Racing Through

My daughter reads all the time. She will grab anything that’s out and about… from the easy readers that ED brings home from the libraries to books that LD recommends.  I thought I’d share some of the series that she’s flown through this semester. Dog Diaries: She’s read them all… Ginger, Buddy, Barry, Togo, Dash. She said they were wonderful.  I notice there is also a series called Horse Diaries...

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Free Water and Water Cycle Resources

A couple of weeks ago, we started on a new unit. One that focuses on water, the water cycle, and water pollution.  A lot of the time I make our own science notebook pages, but there were so many wonderful resources already available, we used what we found online instead for this portion of our Weather and Water unit.  I thought I would share some of these resources with you...

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Homemade Nutrigrain Bars

We love this homemade Nutrigrain Bar recipe! I hadn’t made them for a couple of months and while the kids were out playing I made a batch. Yum! I didn’t have any almond extract on hand so just used 1 tsp of vanilla instead.  No matter how I make them, they’re gone pretty quickly! I thought I’d share that recipe again today. So here you go: A few years ago,...

Don’t Miss Tonight’s Meteor Showers! (Fri. 5/23) 2

Don’t Miss Tonight’s Meteor Showers! (Fri. 5/23)

  Our family loves star gazing and I always try to find out when the next meteor showers pass by. Tonight there is a brand new meteor shower that may light up the night sky.  They are called the Camelopardalids. Scientists aren’t sure exactly how many shooting stars we’ll see, but they could shower down at a rate of 1-per minute.  If the showers happen they should be visible in...

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Teach Your Child to Read!

In this post I’d like to share a dozen activities that we did with the kids to help foster early reading skills. These are activities we did with CVC words and basic sight words to make the learning process fun and engaging!! 🙂 The first step in learning to read is to make sure your child knows their letter sounds. We shared lots of ideas about that in our Preschool...

Wild Horses and Light House Tour – Outer Banks, NC 0

Wild Horses and Light House Tour – Outer Banks, NC

One afternoon last week, we decided to do a couple of tours.  First, we stopped off at the Currituck Beach Light Station.  It is 162 feet and has 220 steps.  Construction on it began in 1873 and it was first illuminated in 1875.  It still serves as an aid to naviagation, lighting up every 3 seconds and off for 17 seconds throughout the night. The exterior of this lighthouse was...

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Ocean Unit Freebies

If you are planning a trip to the beach this summer, you might be interested in some of these freebies I made for the kids when we did our ocean unit.  I hope someone finds these helpful! Below are some of the ocean invertebrate cards  that I made when we were studying the ocean. Remember, crustaceans, arachnids and insects are all part of the arthropod group (look at this chart to see what...

Vacation at the Outer Banks 4

Vacation at the Outer Banks

My sister’s family also homeschools, so we take advantage of the pre-summer season prices to spend a week together. We met up with my Dad & step-Mom, my sister, brother-in-law, nieces and nephew at the Outer Banks. The weather had called for temperatures in the low 70s last week, but once we arrived the forecast changed. We had several days between 85-88 degrees. Perfect for the beach!  I slathered the...

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Animals and Their Groups Sorting Cards (ages 5-8)

A couple of months ago, I did an animal unit with my youngest.  We went over the characteristics of living and non-living things. Then we talked about vertebrates and invertebrates and finally we went over the five vertebrate groups in quite some detail. I shared the free Montessori cards I made for that part of our unit: the Montessori Vertebrate-Invertebrate cards and the sheets I made on Animals and their Characteristics....

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Preschool at Home: Alphabet Activities for 2-4 year olds

Here are some alphabet activity ideas you can do with your little one: At first we played these activities just for letter identification, but as the kids learned their letters we would play these games and identify the sound/s they make. Above all, be enthusiastic and have FUN with the kids!! Jump on Letters:We did this activity with everything from contact paper in the kitchen to letters written in chalk on...