Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
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...
We don’t have a Magic School Bus, but we did make a pretty wonderful field trip this past (extended) weekend. One of our first stops was the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. Part of the reason we studied the heart/circulatory system last week instead of going on to muscles and joints was to take advantage of the spectacular interactive science display at the Franklin Institute. You enter this huge heart on...
Science / Science: Human Body Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 26, 2011 · Last modified February 21, 2022
Our study of the heart and circulatory system started with a listen to our own heartbeats. We measured our heart rates when resting and after walking, running and skipping. Then using a graph put out by Texas heart institute(4th grade curriculum, p. 25, no longer available), we graphed our results. Heart as a Pump: We did this experiment: When your heart beats it acts like a tennis ball filled with...
Freebies / Homeschool Den / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 22, 2011 · Last modified January 11, 2015
We have been working steadily on our USA landmarks and symbols unit study. This is a unit that doesn’t lend itself as well to pictures since I have pulled it together using history resources I have on hand. The kids each have a notebook and we’ve been adding to it steadily. Funny enough, LD has said he LOVES history and has been really into this unit. That amazes me a...
Science / Science: Human Body Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 19, 2011 · Last modified February 21, 2022
Our Study of the Human Hand Why do we have so many bones in our hand? We talked about the fact that there are 27 bones in the hand. First, to demonstrate why this is important I did an activity we had done a couple years ago. We pretended that we just had one bone per finger by taping popcycle sticks to their fingers. Then they had to pick up...
Science / Science: Human Body Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 15, 2011 · Last modified February 21, 2022
Last spring we started learning a bit about the human body, but then we stopped as summer activities took over. We have re-started our human body unit. Before I knew I was going to luck into a zillion human body kits (see my post about being lucky!), I bought the Squishy Human Body by Smart Lab. The kids just loved this! We talked about how the skeleton protects all of...
My friend shared this really terrific video that talks a bit about how octopus and squid camouflage themselves by changing their skin color AND texture. It is astounding how much the octopus in the video blended into the bush. What an amazing world we live in!
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 1, 2011 · Last modified February 3, 2016
We made the starfish, sand dollars, crabs and coral out of cornstarch clay. 1 cup cornstarch 1 cup baking soda 1/2 tablespoon salt 1 cup water Mix and cook on low to medium in a pot until it congeals together. We had fun putting this project together. I’ll share the various steps below: We spent one day painting our boxes. The girls then added glue and sand along the bottom....
Freebies / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Science: Ocean Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 30, 2011 · Last modified November 19, 2020
Sorry about the endless postings about our ocean unit… just a couple more and that’s that! Blogs are funny because they sure don’t show the whole picture. From looking at our blog our days are consumed by oceans!! Heh heh! Well, that’s not at all accurate. I read and read, planned and planned and finally the older kids started back to school last week. As you’ve seen, ED has been...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 29, 2011 · Last modified February 3, 2016
Even though it was quite a drive for us, I decided a trip to the aquarium was in order with all our studies of ocean animals. We went last week. We sure had a terrific day! We all LOVED the jellyfish displays! We were so lucky to see the octopus moving all around! Everyone loved the sharks and we were lucky to see the sharks, sting...
Freebies / Science / Science: Ocean Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 25, 2011 · Last modified April 2, 2021
I made this activity for my older kids (5 and 8). You can download and print these sheets here: Ocean Animals and Their Groups You can download and print these sheets here. There are two pages. You might want to make a colored circle on the back of each of the three related cards. Use a different color for each animal. That way, the kids can check their own work as needed. ...
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.
