Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Homeschool Den / Must Read / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats / Science: Ocean Unit / Science: Whale Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 2, 2012 · Last modified April 30, 2016
Whales are able to survive in the frigid waters of the Arctic. In this series of activities the kids and I explored how that is possible. First, not directly related to the whales themselves, we talked about icebergs. We took giant cottage cheese cartons and froze big blocks of ice. One of those blocks had our wooly mammoth plastic creature. I had the kids guess how much of the ice...
Engineering Challenges / Homeschool Den / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 30, 2012 · Last modified April 7, 2015
Think Challenge: Week 6 We’re loving the spring weather here where we are, so it was time for another outdoor challenge. This is similar to the traditional nature scavenger hunt, this time using a camera. Here is the link to our Photo Hunt check list (pictured below). You can print out copies for your kids. And if you do, I’d love to hear a comment from you! 🙂 Here is...
Homeschool Den / Math General Posts / Math--Addition / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 24, 2012
Since LD has had time on the computer playing multiplication math games, DD wanted some games of her own. Here are some of the addition and subtraction games I found for her. Funschool Alien Attack — LD was really keen to play this and the levels got progressively more challenging (13+13 or 16+17) Another game from Funschool was the Math Popper. I have the addition version pictured, but they also have...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Interviews with other Homeschoolers / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 21, 2012 · Last modified April 13, 2016
In this series, I have had the privilege of interviewing other homeschoolers from across the country. Here to tell us how her family got started homeschooling and what her family’s homeschool style looks like is Erica, the author of the popular homeschooling blog, Confessions of a Homeschooler. She has developed her own homeschooling curriculum including the popular Letter of the Week and K4 curriculums, Expedition Earth, Road Trip USA and...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Homeschool Den / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 11, 2012
There are some really interesting statistics out there about educating preschoolers in America. Did you know that enrollment for preschoolers has increased 679% between 1985 and 2008? In 1985 0.2 million preschoolers were enrolled in school in the USA while in 2008 this had increased to 1.2 million! But in reality, still only a little over half of all 3-4 year olds are in school (52% in 2009) (Digest of Education Statistics,...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Homeschool Den / Math: Preschool Math / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 7, 2012
We incorporate a lot of Montessori math into our preschooling days. There are lots of great websites, but Living Montessori Now is a wonderful place to start as Deb has compiled ideas from all around the web. I also play lots of board games that require counting, we jump and play and sing about numbers. Here are some of the math activities we did a couple of weeks ago. I had this...
Ages 2-6: Fire Safety / Health / Must Read / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Human Body Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 5, 2012 · Last modified August 23, 2018
Germ Experiment: When I saw this germ experiment, I knew we had to add this into our unit on First Aid. After all keeping ourselves healthy is as important as patching up the injuries, right?! The experiment called for gelatin, sugar and petri dishes. We didn’t have petri dishes so used paper cups and covered them immediately with glad wrap in lieu of a cover. Boil 1/2 cup of water...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 23, 2012
On any given morning you’ll find our family trickling out of bed one by one and heading to the kitchen. Usually my youngest, ED, is the first one awake. As I get her breakfast I put away dishes, grab my coffee and then finally sit down to read with her; she’s usually asked me a half-dozen times by then! Most of the time the other two kids (DD, 6 and...
History: American History / History: American West Unit / History: Geography Activities / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 10, 2012
Our next topic was the Louisiana Purchase. Prior to 1803, the United States territory went only as far as the Mississippi River. Napoleon Bonaparte, the ruler of France, needed money for his wars in Europe and sold the Louisiana Territory to the U.S. for $15 million (3 cents an acre!). This nearly doubled the size of the United States. We’ve been using a map that shows the Louisiana Purchase and...
Active Math Games / Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Freebies / Holiday: Valentine's Day / Math General Posts / Math--Addition / Math--Division / Math: Preschool Math / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 7, 2012 · Last modified January 22, 2015
Valentine’s Day Division Cards I made a Valentine’s Day set of division cards to use with LD over the next week or so. We use these cards to play a game called Fast Track — an idea we got from Peggy Kaye’s Games for Math. To make the board you need a large piece of butcher paper or poster board. There are three win spaces, three start spaces and various...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool for ED - Fall 2011 (age 3 1/2) / Freebies / Montessori (general info) / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 17, 2012
ED is ready to tackle the teen numbers. She often skips some of the numbers after 13. I am using a homemade version of the Montessori seguin board (download the packet I made here). It’s a board with lots of 10s in a row. The child then places a digit over the zero to make 11, 12, 13, etc. 1) First ED counted the number of animals. 2) Then she...
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.
