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Holiday: Earth Day / Homeschool Den / Nature / Science
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 17, 2012
The celebration of Earth Day began over 40 years ago. It is a day to celebrate our planet and think about how we can help our environment. Did you know that the Environmental Protection Agency was established not long after that first Earth Day in 1970? The Clean Air Act also passed that same year. Now Earth Day is celebrated in more than 175 countries by an estimated 500 million...
Homeschool Den / Must Read / Nature / Outdoor Fun / Outdoor: Fossils / Science / Science: Ocean Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 8, 2012 · Last modified April 1, 2016
We love fossils! I guess the fire was first lit in Australia. My scientist friend told us about a creek south of Alice Springs where people have found lots of fossils. (See original post here: Fossils in Australia and the photos below.) We took the kids and made some great finds. Even my friend, Peter, was impressed! LD was hooked on fossils! Not too long after that we...
Freebies / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Nature / Outdoor Fun
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 6, 2012 · Last modified February 9, 2017
This week was a bit out of the ordinary. We did a skeleton version of school each day. The kids did Math Spelling (we use All About Spelling) Grammar (see yesterday’s post) Independent reading (for about an hour each day) I read a chapter each day from our book on Sir Isaac Newton We worked on our Fifty States song. We’ve been working on that slowly, slowly this entire year....
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Nature / Outdoor Fun
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 18, 2012 · Last modified April 1, 2016
We do this activity about once a year, but it’s always a hit with the kids! Back as a child I always did this with pine cones, but since we didn’t have pine cones readily accessible we improvised using a bit of bark. The kids spread peanut butter all over the bark and then poured bird seed on it. Our windows are all quite high off the...
Nature / Outdoor Fun / Science / Science: Garden Science / Science: Plant Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 17, 2012 · Last modified March 22, 2016
It’s that time of year again! Our dining room table and a second table are covered with dirt planters! Last week the kids and I planted some seeds together. The kids are always excited to watch the seedlings start to grow. You can tell the kids helped since there are so many seedlings in that one pot to the right!! We also weeded and worked on one...
Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Nature
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 4, 2011 · Last modified April 16, 2015
Now to my family for a moment. Sometimes it’s good to know the ending and outcome of sad events.If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you might remember that my sister/bro-in-law and their family were victims of the May 2010 flooding in Nashville. My brother-in-law had just returned from a 9 month deployment to Iraq when the flood hit. They spent 12 hours moving as much as they...
We still love going hiking along the trail that heads off into the woods behind our house.
What inspired me to train again: My kids are such an inspiration. They have boundless energy. I have been amazed and proud at how much they have grown this year as individuals. LD has such amazing strength — I find it astonishing for a seven year old. (That’s LD at the top of the rope. He went zipping up really fast! He has more arm strength than I have ever...
We’re enjoying lots of playdates and time with friends this summer. What a beautiful park! On another note, I think I’m going to train for a half-marathon in September. I’m excited to have a big goal — just for ME! 🙂 It has been years since I last trained for anything. My last marathon was on the Sydney Olympic marathon coarse… and I finished in the Sydney Olympic stadium with...
I was so excited to find this website — enature.com. It lets you listen to the sounds made by frogs and toads. Since we have a symphony of frog calls at night it’s pretty neat knowing which one’s which! Here are the frogs and toads we’ve come across (in the hundreds) here in our neck of the woods: Pickerel Frog: Fowler’s Toad: Northern Cricket Frog: Cope’s Gray Treefrog:
The past week we had a wonderful time with our friends. We took them on a short hike through the woods and spent a lot of time looking for frogs and things. LD couldn’t get enough time down at the creek and spent a couple hours each afternoon hunting things down. We found a bunch of new (to us) critters! How exciting! I think this little guy is a Northern...
Today LD found a turtle out in the yard. We think it is an Eastern Box Turtle. We learned quite a bit about these critters: *Turtles can live 50-100 years.*Turtles as a species have been around for 250 million years.*Turtles eat insects, earthworms, millipedes, beetles, caterpillars, fruit, mushrooms, berries and vegetables.*The plastron or lower shell of the turtle can help identify its sex. Male turtles’ lower shells are concave (goes...
Nature / Outdoor Fun / Science: Garden Science
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 24, 2011 · Last modified March 22, 2016
Gardening continues to be a rewarding part of our home life. We all have an incredible enthusiasm for our new gardening adventures! Here’s a glimpse at our veggie garden. I put in planks to keep ED and the others from wandering all over the garden. They enjoy balancing along them and have claimed certain sections for themselves! We already have quite a large number of lettuce plants (since that’s one...
Nature / Outdoor Fun / Science: Garden Science
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 26, 2011 · Last modified March 22, 2016
We have been outside working in the gardens almost every afternoon (for 2-3 hours). This is such a huge part of our life right now, I just had to write a bit about that again. I thought the girls looked particularly cute yesterday. Yes, I let my girls garden in velvet dresses!! They are looking intently for grubs because I mentioned that that they aren’t good for the garden. When...
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.
