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Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Language Arts: Reading
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 21, 2010
Here are some of the Cinderella cards. The kids really enjoyed this game. Each player takes a turn turning over and reading the card. They keep any word they read. If a player gets a shoe card, s/he gets to take another player’s card. When the midnight card gets turned over, the round ends and the winner of that round is the player with the most cards.
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 2, 2010
I wanted to share a couple of things that are workingreally well for us for handwriting. I had heard aboutsandpaper letters. In fact, I’ve heard that a lot of peoplehave made their own. I decided to buy sandpaper letters(ours are from didax.com). I have found them SO helpful.Both LD and DD enjoy doing them and it helps LD withsome of the letters he hasn’t been forming properly. I wish I...
LD has been reading these fairy tales fromthe Beacon Second Reader aloud to me. Thisbook was published in 1914. LD and I both like the tales. You can downloadthem for free and print them out. I did this andexpect to get a lot of use out of them. (LD isalready half-way through the book.) Here are some sample pages (not everypage has an illustration) from the Shoemakerand the Elves and...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 5, 2010
I wasn’t quite sure what to call this post, buthere’s an activity we did today. Part I: I put letters on some cards and hid them aroundthe yard. DD (4) had to find the animal worker lettercards. LD (6) had to find the stars.
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 5, 2010
Part II: DD had to sort her hard hat animals into different colors.Then she had to put the letters in the right order tomake the words house, flower and teddy bear. LD had to take his letters, make as many words as hecould and write them in his notebook (men, cent, pin etc). He’s been unhappy about his journal writing, but hereally enjoyed this activity.
Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc) / Language Arts: Reading
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 7, 2009
I’ve been reading lots of books this holiday. Among other things (several novels, some science experiment books for kids and things like that), I’ve been re-reading one of my favorite resources, The Read Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease. I find this book inspiring and I recommend it to anyone who has children whether you homeschool them or not. It gives so many amazing statistics, facts, and real-life examples about why...
Peggy Kaye’s books have been a WONDERFUL additionto our homeschooling curriculum. LD is not thrilled aboutwriting, but using ideas like this one from Peggy Kaye’sbooks have made a HUGE difference to the enjoymentand pleasure he gets out of writing. I got this ideafrom Games for Writing and LD is tickled by the sillysentences that he’s had to write like this one: A robot sang a song in the White House...
We have a number of different ways we approach languagearts. LD is a pretty good reader, so he’s had “independentreading” time each day for the past four or five months. Hechooses a book to read and reads quietly on his own. Welet him choose whatever he wants (not even offering suggestionsor comments about how easy/hard a book is). We also don’t ask him anything about his reading except perhapswhat did...
It’s obviously most interesting to post about the livelier things we do at the Homeschool Den. But to be honest, I really enjoy the quieter things we do as well. We read lots and lots of books together. I have a wooden napkin holder where I display 3-5 new picture books on the dining room table. I change this several times a week (as needed). Whenever we sit together at...
LD has a writing journal. Activities really vary. Forexample, I’ve asked him questions like“What did you do over the school holidays?”“What is your favorite type of junk food?”“What is your phone number?” and“Look at your fingers. Your finger tips areall different. Draw two of your finger printsbelow. Label them.” This idea below I got from Peggy Kaye’s Games forWriting. What a great resource! (Sorry if I’m soundinga bit like an...
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.
