Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
When I first introduced quarter notes, half notes andwhole notes to the kids, I showed the kids the sandpapernotes. They looked at the notes, felt them, and also shuttheir eyes to guess what they had. Then I showed them the rhythm pizza pieces. Westacked them and talked about how many quarter sliceswere needed to make a whole pizza, etc. I thought thiswas a clever, creative way to introduce the topic...
Here is a list of some of the things I’ve found especially useful in putting together music games, activities and so forth for our little classes (I’ll come back and add to this if I think of anything more): Kodaly Today: A Cognitive Approach to Elementary Music Education — by Micheal Houlahan/Philip Tacka: This is a bit heavy on the philosophy and methodology of early music education and teaching, but...
Elem-Children's Music 1 (6 yr old) / Music
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 13, 2010 · Last modified April 25, 2015
Here are some games that are set to go, but that we have not yet played together. I’m sharing it now, though, along with my other music-related resources. Move forward the value of the note you pick up (thus, a half-note moves forward 2 spaces, a quarter note moves forward 1 space, a whole note moves ahead 4 spaces, etc.) Climb the Mountain Sheet: Cards for Climb the Mountain Game:...
You can find some very cute treble and base cleff fishynotes at susanparadis.com. If your child is learning the notes on piano there is avery cute icecream activity at laytonmusic.wordpress.com Here she has plain keyboard cards with a dot. (Like theicecream part below.) You can use them as three part cards, placing the keyboard and letter onto the full card, you could play memory,matching and so forth. Here is a...
If you’ve visited our website before, You’ll recognize thecraft table where I set up experiments. In the corneris where I stash some of my music stuff. I have theselovely composer posters there. Since I’m talking aboutresources, I thought I’d share the link where I got them:http://laytonmusic.wordpress.com/2008/01/04/composer-posters/She has lots to choose from. I noticed that she had these same composer cards in asmaller version and I thought that was perfect for...
We had our little music session as usual this week. The rhythm sticks below are just wood dowels that I cut down and sanded on the ends. We explored different ways of tapping them together (high, low, on the ground, on our head, end-to-end, etc.) Then we played our rhythm sticks to a fast-tempoed song. The kids all really like the knee-bouncing songs. This week we said the nursery rhyme...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Music / Outdoor Fun / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 4, 2010
I love music and it has always been a big part of my life.I play the oboe, guitar and piano and am learning thedulcimer. LD started learning the piano earlier this year and isdoing really well. Still, I wanted the girls to get to sing,dance and enjoy music as well. I set aside two differenttimes to do music activities during the week. One ismore for ED and the other is...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Music / Outdoor Fun
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 4, 2010
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Music / Outdoor Fun / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 4, 2010
In keeping with our forest theme, we’ve played thisfun game outside the past few days. The object is to grabthe squirrel’s tail while protecting your own. In ourversion we each had a couple of tails to start out with! FOX AND RABBIT GAME: Another good game we played this week was the “Fox andRabbit” Game (from Family Fun website). Two players areblind folded. One is the fox and has to...
Every now and then people ask each other on homeschoolgroups what kind of music they include in their homeschoolschedule. My kids all did Kindermusik (until the teacher started anew job). Now we do music classes with some friends.Currently we’re doing a class with ED’s little 20mo-old-friend. LD and DD decided they didn’t much like the “baby”class, though I hear DD singing all the songs we do (andshe usually joins us...
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.
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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.
