Homeschool Den

Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!

Category: Must Read

Why You Shouldn’t Reward Kids for Learning 7

Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc) / Language Arts: Reading / Must Read

Why You Shouldn’t Reward Kids for Learning

Plato: Knowledge that is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind. This past summer we chose not to participate in our library’s reading program. At one point, we were chatting with a librarian and she asked if the kids were doing the library’s summer reading program. She was shocked when I told her we weren’t participating this year. “May I ask why?” she wanted to know. I had a...

4

Freebies / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Science / Science: Chemistry Unit

Chemistry: Molecule Movement Experiment and Chemistry Review Worksheet

We’ve been covering the states of matter, atoms and molecules in chemistry. I wanted review some of the information we’ve covered and made some basic worksheets for the kids. First, we went over the three states of matter and looked closely again at the parts of an atom. Molecule Movement Experiment: Then we did a simple experiment with water to show that water molecules can move at different rates. We...

0

Critical Thinking Activities / Games for Thinking and Learning / Homeschool Den / Must Read

Games for Thinking and Learning: Lab Mice

This is a series about the logic and critical thinking games we play in our homeschool.  We have a table in our homeschool room and I rotate in new games a couple of times a week. These are all games we’ve acquired for schooling (I haven’t received them to review).  Back in September I explained… Why games? They’re fun. They can be challenging and helps kids (and adults!) apply creative...

0

Freebies / Homeschool Den / Language Arts - Grammar Worksheets / Language Arts: Writing / Must Read

Grammar Practice Sheets: Apostrophes, Quotation Marks and Underlining (and others)

We tend to switch back and forth between our spelling program and our grammar work.  This past week we worked on grammar and I made a few more sheets that paralleled the topics that were covered in our Write Source Skills Book (here’s a link to Grade 2 and Grade 4).  If you’re interested you can download the worksheets I made for the kids. They cover the use of apostrophes, quotation...

Last Week was Hard!! Homeschool Realities… 1

Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Language Arts: Reading / Must Read

Last Week was Hard!! Homeschool Realities…

Sometimes homeschooling is wonderful packed with endless projects and terrific successes. I like blogging about all that. But sometimes life just isn’t like that. This past week was really challenging. We were just coming back from a trip. Who doesn’t struggle to get caught up with life after being on the road? Plus more or less as soon as we got back, Hubby left for a business trip. So while...

3

History: American History / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Trips We've Taken

Hands On Experiences at Colonial Williamsburg

Over the course of the week we met families from Georgia, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Ohio and New York who had come Colonial Williamsburg for the homeschool experience.  During homeschool week they had lots (and lots) of children’s activities.  Every activity we went to was absolutely terrific and educational.  Here are some of the things we attended during the week: We did both the normal orientation walk as well...

1

History: American History / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Trips We've Taken

Homeschool Week at Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia

  We’ve heard wonderful things about the homeschool programs in Colonial Williamsburg  in some of the yahoo groups. For two weeks in September, there are programs especially for homeschoolers. They offered discount tickets for homeschoolers and their families and have lots of programs and experiences geared specifically for kids.   This year we decided to go with some close friends of ours to check things out. You can spend lots...

2

Critical Thinking Activities / Games for Thinking and Learning / Must Read

Games for Thinking and Learning: Set

This is a series about some of games we include in our homeschool. Set is a fast paced card game that requires the players to think quickly and logically.  Set is a fairly easy game to learn to play and can be played by one or more players. To play, we laid out twelve cards.  Each card contains one of three symbols (squiggles, diamonds, ovals) in varying numbers (up to three),...

The Mansion with 32 Secret Doors!! 0

Homeschool Den / Must Read / Trips We've Taken

The Mansion with 32 Secret Doors!!

Have you ever dreamed of visiting an almost magical hotel with secret doors hidden everywhere and art, antiques and nick-nacks of every shape, size and description? It has over 20,000 books and 15,000 pieces of art. It’s a mansion that just begs for exploration — and that’s what our family did spending more nearly five hours exploring every nook and cranny trying to find some of the 32 hidden doors...

Journal Writing, Community Service and More 6

Food in America (concerns) / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Must Read

Journal Writing, Community Service and More

We just returned from an amazing vacation. It was exciting, educational and left me inspired and oh so excited about life in general! We packed in so much! That said, I know I’m behind on lots of things — for one thing I usually have blog posts ready a week or two out… but having been on the road for so long, I’m plum out of posts (except the Wednesday...

Celery Experiment 2

Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Garden Science / Science: Plant Unit

Plant Experiments: Colored Carnations and Slurping Celery

ED has been learning about plants this past week or two.  We talked about the various parts of the plant and then read a bit in our science books about the function of the stem (and trunk) of plants.  We revisited an experiment we did 2 1/2 years ago — the celery slurping experiment — as I called it then! This time I bought a bunch of carnations to experiment with...

Thoughts on Being Nice 1

Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Must Read

Thoughts on Being Nice

Sometimes I’m not as patient as I should be. Perhaps I haven’t slept quite as much as I should have or one of the kids is having an off day.  I feel grumpy, burdened, moody or cross at the world.  On those occasions I know I’ve been guilty of not being as nice as I could. On those days I need to snap out of it, fake it, listen to good music...

Games: Pop-Arty Beads 2

Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Games for Thinking and Learning / Homeschool Den / Must Read

Games: Pop-Arty Beads

I often get asked how I keep my 4-year old engaged while I’m working with my older kids.  Last year ED loved doing Perler Beads. She would spend 30-60 minutes at a time working on those.  This year we added in something new that has brought endless hours of sorting and creativity… Pop-Arty Beads. It is wonderful for small motor skills, sorting and just for fun in general!  The beads are...

8

Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Chemistry Unit

States of Matter – Solid, Liquid, Gas – Learning Activities

Are you working on chemistry this year? I thought I’d share some of the activities we did when we learned about the States of Matter. I also link to a number of other posts from our chemistry unit. We’ve been having a blast with chemistry — well not literally, but sure have been learning a lot! Today we did most of the hands on activities suggested by the wonderful, wonderful...