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Recipes / Science / Science: Astronomy Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 4, 2012 · Last modified December 24, 2015
We had a lot of fun with this part of our astronomy unit.We talked about the phases of the moon. We started off with a lamp and held an egg in our hand. Then we moved the egg slowly around, watching how the shadow on the egg changed as the egg moved relative to the earth/our eyes. We all took turns slowly watching the shadows on the egg change (photo...
Science / Science: Astronomy Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 29, 2011 · Last modified January 11, 2016
On this day we read about the Moon and did the lapbook components to add to our science notebook. What’s perfect about these lapbooks for us right now is the writing is not overwhelming and reinforces the main points we’ve gone over. We used the Moon — Speedy Lapbook by Homeschool Bits (which was quite inexpensive). Moon Craters: Our activity that day was to talk about why the surface of...
Science / Science: Astronomy Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 28, 2011 · Last modified January 11, 2016
The moon is very far away (225,622 miles to 252,088 miles depending on its position in its elliptical orbit around the Earth). NASA had to be very careful about the calculations they made to send someone to the moon especially since the moon is a moving target. In this activity, the kids are trying to hit the moon (a nut suspended on a string) that is swinging back and forth....
Lapbooks / Science / Science: Astronomy Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 20, 2011 · Last modified December 24, 2015
We seem to talk about the planets about once a year, don’t we? This time we did a little activity that showed the four inner, rocky planets, the asteroid belt and the four outer planets, the gas giants. In this picture you can see that the asteroid belt has two layers as well! We did the inner and out planets speedy lapbook by homeschool bits (25cents) — and even ED...
Science / Science Experiments / Science: Astronomy Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 19, 2011 · Last modified December 24, 2015
The kids have been begging for some hands-on science experiments. I have a bigger unit planned, but since December and January will be a bit broken up as far as our schooling goes, I decided to delve into a short unit with lots of experiments based on one of Janice VanCleave’s books (202 Oozing, Bubbling, Dripping, Bouncing, Experiments) and lots of notebook/lapbook pages from Homeschool Bits. Here’s some of what...
Ages 2-6: Bird Unit / Lapbooks / Science / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 14, 2011 · Last modified November 26, 2015
Often while I’m reading aloud (in this case we’re still reading Little House in the Big Woods) I have the kids working on other things. A few days ago I had them cut out the pieces of a quick owl lapbook (All Owls, a 50cent lapbook by homeschool bits). It had great tidbits of information, reinforcing all we had read last week. They put it together and were so excited...
Ages 2-6: Bird Unit / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 8, 2011 · Last modified January 4, 2016
As I mentioned yesterday, we did a lot of reading about owls to lead into the awesome science study on owls! We talked about the forest food chain (who eats whom) and then I asked them what owls ate. Owls eat mice, voles, snakes and other small animals. They swallow their prey whole and about eight hours later spit out the parts they can’t digest in a pellet of fur...
Ages 2-6: Bird Unit / Montessori (general info) / Science / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 7, 2011 · Last modified October 11, 2018
We have had so much fun with this forest unit so far. We’ve done a ton of crafts and coloring. The kids colored in these cute owl pages (which are no longer available – http://katibura.xyz/printable/printable-coloring-pages-for-adults-owls). The kids did a simple fall craft we got at oriental trading: All the kids have been doing the forest animal sorts and we talked once again about vertebrate and invertebrate animals. The kids sorted...
Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Preschool for ED - Fall 2011 (age 3 1/2) / Ages 2-6: Theme Time (age 2-4) / Science: Dinosaurs Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 30, 2011 · Last modified February 3, 2016
Two weeks ago, I read The Magic Tree House: Dinosaurs Before Dark (affiliate link) to ED. This inspired a short themed unit on dinosaurs. Here are a few of the things we did, plus other dinosaur books and dinosaur puzzles that I don’t have pictured below. Last week we were lucky enough to top our theme-time unit off with a visit to the Gray Fossil Site in east Tennessee on our...
Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Preschool for ED - Fall 2011 (age 3 1/2) / Freebies / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 29, 2011 · Last modified November 26, 2015
Forest Habitat Animal Sort – Vertebrates-Invertebrates ED’s next habitat study is on the forest. I made a set of cards for the kids to sort through. We’ll be sorting them by vertebrates-invertebrates and also into the five animal kingdoms: ( fish), amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. Oh and by the way, I didn’t include any fish in this sort–I did include a photo of crayfish that LD found in the...
We had such a great homeschooling day on Monday. I was skeptical we’d get into the groove since we had just had my niece and nephew with us for four days. I brought in some spooky schooling, though and we had a terrific day! I went out and bought some dry ice and we did a number of experiments. You can see suggestions from Steve Spangler science and a couple...
Ages 2-6: Preschool for ED - Fall 2011 (age 3 1/2) / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 26, 2011
This was a unit I thought would mostly be fore ED, but all the kids jumped excitedly into it!. My kids know very little about the American deserts of the southwest, though they could tell you heaps about the Australian desert (they were born in the Outback and we moved back to the US about a year and a half ago). So we focused on features and animals of Texas,...
Engineering - STEM Activities / Science: Human Body Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 24, 2011 · Last modified January 4, 2015
Our last brain-related activity was to design a helmet that would protect our egg pilot in a fall. The shell, I told them, was his skull; the egg white and yolk was his brain. Then I left the kids to it! LD designed a balloon-encased egg protector. DD designed a construction paper protective cloak: Mom designed a cotton ball-play dough helmet: I took the photo before covering it...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 19, 2011 · Last modified December 31, 2014
We have been studying the brain in fits and spurts the last couple of weeks. For some reason, we’re only getting to it about twice a week. But here’s what we’ve done. We talked quite a bit about the functions of the brain (not the senses as we’ll do this later), but things like memory, thinking, sleep and thing like that. MEMORY: First we talked about the difference between long...
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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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.
