Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Random Thoughts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 11, 2013
I love homeschooling — and I love writing about what we’re doing, but life is taking over for a little while. We have family coming from all over the US (and from Brazil) for my husband’s great uncle’s birthday party. He’s turning 90 and we are hosting several families (they started arriving earlier this week). Then tomorrow we will have 50 or 60 people over to our house. It’s been...
Active Math Games / Freebies / Homeschool Den / Math General Posts / Math--Multiplication
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 8, 2013 · Last modified April 2, 2017
DD has learned most of her multiplication facts, but she still needs lots of extra practice because it takes her a while to come up with the answer sometimes. I’m trying to find some fun ways to keep her practicing them and making sure she has them memorized and can recite the answer quickly. So here’s a post covering some of the fun ways we’re reviewing those facts… everything from...
Freebies / History: India Unit / History: World Religions / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 7, 2013 · Last modified March 3, 2016
Last week I shared the Free India Learning Packet. We’ve covered some basic facts and geography about India from that set and read about Ancient India in several of the books we’re using (Story of the World, Kingfisher Encyclopedia, etc.). Now that we covered some of the background about the ancient Indus Valley region, it was time to delve into some background about Hinduism. For the next couple of weeks,...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 6, 2013 · Last modified February 25, 2020
I learned a new word with this unit: A zoonosis is any disease or infection that is naturally transmissible from vertebrate animals to humans. Zoonoses would be the plural! We had such a good experience with the CDC Science Ambassador unit on the West Nile Virus that we decided to try one more unit: Healthy Pets, Healthy People (Note: Look on the second set of tabs for “Zoonotic Disease”). Besides...
Freebies / History: Geography Activities / History: India Unit / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 30, 2013 · Last modified April 5, 2016
This year we are again studying world cultures in our homeschool. We are focusing on Asia and just started our unit on India. I made a packet for the kids to add to their history notebooks which covers the geography of India, some basic facts (population, capital, etc.) and things like that. It’s 20 pages long and includes answers to the various sheets that the kids and I will be...
Ages 2-6: Fall Theme / Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Toddler/Preschool Activities / Freebies / Homeschool Den / Kindergarten / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 27, 2013 · Last modified January 1, 2015
Get your 3-6 year old into the fall spirit with some fall-themed activities. There’s a huge selection of free packets to choose from… I’ll highlight a number of free packs I’ve come across: Fall Pack from 3 Dinosaurs: Leaves Unit by 2 Teaching Mommies Fall and Thanksgiving Dot-to-Dots — Resources I mentioned last year about this time Fall Worksheet Pack from Mama’s Learning Corner (ages 4-6): Fall Fun Printables by Homeschool...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Mom Stories
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 25, 2013
So, a couple days ago I wrote a blog post about how are homeschool routine is working out this year. It’s going pretty well and I love being back into a routine. But as for life in general, it’s sometimes hard to juggle everything. Preparing and time with the kids homeschooling takes up a good chunk of my day, as you can imagine. Plus, writing also takes time. But there...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 23, 2013 · Last modified November 17, 2015
We’ve been back to school for about a month, I wanted to share how homeschool life is going. I love the posts where other homeschoolers share what they aspire to each day — and that’s what this post is. Not that everything on the list get checked off, but if we were to have an ideal day it might look something like this (this is the list that floats around...
Freebies / Homeschool Den / Kindergarten / Montessori (general info) / Nature / Science / Science: Earth Science Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 20, 2013 · Last modified March 3, 2016
This week ED and I read two books together: What Makes Day and Night (affiliate link) and Totally Amazing Night Animals. (affiliate links.) She really enjoyed both of them and we added in some activities to go with these books. After we read through What Makes Day and Night (affiliate link), we spent a lot of time in the dark bathroom! First I held the flashlight and shined it at her as she...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Random Thoughts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 18, 2013 · Last modified February 24, 2016
Sometimes I need some homeschooling encouragement. Here are some things I need to remember as we race through our day… Think about dinner in the morning — That tops my list because having dinner planned (or better yet, waiting in a crockpot!) makes the end of my day SO much better! The education is important, but keeping the family healthy, happy and on track really has to top my...
Homeschool Den / Kindergarten / Language Arts: Writing / Science / Science: Human Body Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 17, 2013 · Last modified September 5, 2017
Over the summer, I stumbled across the Center for Disease Control’s Science Ambassador Program. What a great find! It has a series of lessons (maybe mini-unit would be a better term for them) on all kinds of various topics with challenging activities for students to learn about. Topics include — autism, birth defect, Hantavirus, HIV/Aids… and many more. What I like about their lessons is that they require the students...
History: Geography Activities / Homeschool Den / Kindergarten / Montessori (general info)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 16, 2013 · Last modified March 17, 2016
Last Thursday I talked about using the Montessori landmark cards, but I didn’t think to talk about ED’s other geography activities. After reading through Me on the Map (which is just perfect for the 4-6 year old crowd), I had ED do an activity we had done a year and a half ago or so. You have the kids color in and paste their location, pinpointing their location by going...
History: American History / History: Civics, Government and Economics / History: Geography Activities / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 12, 2013 · Last modified February 12, 2016
We are planning to focus on World Cultures (India and China) this year, but we haven’t started in on that yet. Instead, we resumed the year with some of the U.S. geography and history activities we were working on last May/June. Since we traveled quite a bit this summer I wanted to reinforce some of that geography. We talked about our trips and the states we visited. We pulled out the...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Interviews with other Homeschoolers / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Homeschooling in the News
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 9, 2013
In August 2013, a new study was released showing a continued increase in the number and percentage of students who are homeschooled in America. The last time the U.S. government released data about the number of homeschooled students was back in 2007. How many homeschoolers are there? In 2007, 2.9% of students were homeschooled. In 2011-2012, 3.4% of students were homeschooled. In 2007, the number of homeschooled students was about 1.5...
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.
