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Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Freebies / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc) / Language Arts: Reading / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 29, 2012
In our daily biography a few days ago we learned about Aesop, a Greek slave and story teller who is said to have lived 620-565 BC. Each fable contains a cautionary, ageless moral. And just in time for us, the Library of Congress released Aesop’s Fables Interactive Book. When you click on the link you can either read the fables on your computer or you can get the app for...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Toddler/Preschool Activities / Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Reading
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 23, 2012
We found these play mats on sale at Michaels for $2.50. I turned it into a sight word game and ED’s been leaping and jumping all week! It’s been a huge hit!
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Freebies / Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Reading / Must Read / Science / Science Experiments
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 21, 2012 · Last modified March 21, 2015
It’s been a while since I talked about the books we’re reading. We have lots of books around, plus we check out lots of books from our local library (50+ at a time!). I thought I’d highlight ten books that have been on the repeated request list. While we’ve read other books in the past couple of weeks, these are the books that I have read again and again (and...
Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Reading / Language Arts: Writing / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 1, 2012
If your child needs to review some grammar rules, here are a few online games he/she can play: Magical Capitals: Help the fairy find all the words that should be capitalized. Comma Chameleon: Help the chameleon punctuate sentences. Blown Away: Determine which letter in the sentence should be capitalized. Beat the Clock: Apostrophe practice. Rewrite the sentence by adding an apostrophe and/or s. Play your Caps Right: Find the words...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Freebies / Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Reading / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published July 16, 2012 · Last modified August 3, 2016
One of the things I’ve been doing since returning from our trip is to continue planning for our homeschool. I came across an email from ReadingTeacher.com. [Added in 9 months Later: These are no longer available for free from ReadingTeacher. Instead I wound up visiting Dr. Mariott’s website and downloaded them from there. We wound up using all 52 of these readers with ED, my youngest. They really worked well...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Toddler/Preschool Activities / Freebies / Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Reading / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 19, 2012 · Last modified March 7, 2016
We are using the Bob Books to help ED learn to read. She is just learning to sound out CVC words. While my other two kids learned to read early (age 3) using the Bob Book series (and others), my third child has her own pace and style of learning. She is excited about writing words, loves to color, and has amazing pencil skills. I made these worksheets for her. These would never (never,...
Freebies / Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Spelling
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 24, 2012 · Last modified January 3, 2020
DD loves to write little notes and stories, so I made this sort to help her understand how/why past tense -ed verbs are formed. She’s a creative speller and will often end her verbs in -t or -id. This is a lesson covered in All About Spelling, but she won’t be up to this lesson (in volume 3) for a while yet. This is just a more colorful version of...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Language Arts: Reading
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 15, 2012 · Last modified March 14, 2019
Sometimes it’s a bit hard to describe how homeschooling works. Lots of things happen simultaneously and our read aloud time is the best example of this. This semester our read aloud time has been mostly centered around American history (though we also read a book about Isaac Newton). We were studying the American West and so we read the Sign of the Beaver, Little House in the Big Woods, and The...
Freebies / Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Spelling
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 10, 2012 · Last modified January 24, 2015
Another word sort I made for the kids was for words ending in the /shun/ sound. DD chose the theme this time! I printed the first page out in normal size and the other four pages two-per-page. You can print out your own copy of this tion sion cion cian word sort Hope someone finds this useful!
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Freebies / Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Reading
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 1, 2012 · Last modified July 6, 2016
A couple of years ago I made game-boards to go along with some cute princess-themed sight word cards I found over at Kelly’s Kindergarten. Print out both pages of the sight words “Cinderella’s Ball.” (3rd game down) and/or the sight words under Sight Word Memory: Princess-easy (you’ll need to scroll down to the 15th game). Print out the cards on cardstock. To play, place all the cards face down in...
Freebies / Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Spelling
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 26, 2012
It probably comes as no surprise that we’ve been into the shuttle this past week or so! We use All About Spelling and I made a word sort that goes along with volume three (though since it’s a simple sort you can use it with your kids any time even if you don’t use All About Spelling). This is a space-themed word sort for long-o words. Just so you know...
Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Spelling / Language Arts: Writing / Math General Posts / Music / Nature / Outdoor Fun / Science
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 20, 2012
I think we all worry a lot about what our kids need to know right now. What skills should they have? Can they do what they’re supposed to in fill-in-the-blank subject? We’re currently working on lots of stuff — math, spelling, physics, critical thinking, writing skills, music, but ultimately what is important that they remember and know from *this* day or *this* week? What do I want my kids to learn?...
Freebies / Homeschool Den / Language Arts - Grammar Worksheets / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 5, 2012
Sometimes this doesn’t make as interesting material for a blog post, but we do cover grammar and language arts in addition to All About Spelling (we love, love love this program and it deserves its own post sometime), writing (we often use the Teacher Filebox for this), and First Language Lessons. For basic rules of grammar we use the Write Source Skillsbook as our core (more about that below). We...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Freebies / Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Reading
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 3, 2012 · Last modified November 6, 2016
ED is just now starting to work on simple cvc words. The past week or so, she has been working on -it and -in words. We printed out her own -it and -in books. There’s just one word per page like bit, fit, sit in the -it book or bin, fin, win in the -in book. I sit together with ED as we look over a few pages (we do...
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.
