Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
It has been a very busy week and I’m just now gettingaround to talking about this week’s science experiment. We talked about surface tension this week and how askin-like layer (called a meniscus) forms on the top ofthe water. We saw how this allows water to rise up overthe top of the little cup. All three of the kids repeated these experiments anumber of times. They especially liked using the...
Our third little experiment was to try tofloat a needle. First, we dropped a needle from up high, thenlower and lower to see what happened. Nomatter how close we were to the top of thewater, the needle sank. Then I said we were going to try to make aneedle float. The excitement and anticipation built… Gently the kids placed their needles on asmall piece of tissue paper. We watchedas the...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Science
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 11, 2010 · Last modified August 31, 2019
Be sure to grab our free Living – Nonliving Cards and Packet here: If you’ve read about our activities for a while, you’ll see that we tend to repeat things quite a bit. This week, I stuck the living, non-living sorting into the workbox once again. DD really enjoyed it (LD only did the cards below and that was only because DD asked him to!) I can’t remember where I...
Arts and Crafts / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 9, 2010 · Last modified December 5, 2021
Today in our study of the forest animal habitat we read The Mitten. (affiliate link) We read Jan Brett’s book first. Using the beautiful mitten masks by Jan Brett the kids reenacted the story by putting the animal into the mitten (the kids are holding up the masks in the picture above). The mitten is just a file folder, drawn in the shape of a mitten. Jan Brett’s printables for...
Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Toddler/Preschool Activities / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 9, 2010 · Last modified December 23, 2016
I made this bear lapbook with/for DD a while back. Since we’re talking about forest animals, it was time to bring it out in the workboxes again. The girls have both had fun with it (even LD has had a couple of goes). It contains a number of different little activities. As you can see from the lapbook cover, DD made her own little pom-pom bear. Then we used the...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Arts and Crafts / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 5, 2010
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Arts and Crafts / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 5, 2010
We continued working on the little crafts for our forestdioramas last week. We learned a bit about owls andmade this little craft (using Styrofoam, felt and fabricpaint).
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Arts and Crafts / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 5, 2010
We also learned about foxes this week. Our fox was primarily a sewing craft. We used feltand did a few stitches to form a nose. Then theysewed the head onto the body with a few stitches. They pulled knotted embroidery thread throughto make whiskers. The tail was also sewed on, but we wound up justgluing the legs on (there was only so much sewingDD wanted to do!) The ears and...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Music / Outdoor Fun / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 4, 2010
I love music and it has always been a big part of my life.I play the oboe, guitar and piano and am learning thedulcimer. LD started learning the piano earlier this year and isdoing really well. Still, I wanted the girls to get to sing,dance and enjoy music as well. I set aside two differenttimes to do music activities during the week. One ismore for ED and the other is...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Music / Outdoor Fun / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 4, 2010
In keeping with our forest theme, we’ve played thisfun game outside the past few days. The object is to grabthe squirrel’s tail while protecting your own. In ourversion we each had a couple of tails to start out with! FOX AND RABBIT GAME: Another good game we played this week was the “Fox andRabbit” Game (from Family Fun website). Two players areblind folded. One is the fox and has to...
Outdoor Fun / Science / Where We Used to Live (Australia posts)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 2, 2010
The cicadas are out now and I promised LD that wecould go to the park to hunt for cicadas. I packed a picniclunch and we headed there after Kindergym (for ED). At first the only wildlife we saw were the birds (galahs,middle picture and the crested pigeon, bottom).
Outdoor Fun / Science / Where We Used to Live (Australia posts)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 2, 2010 · Last modified May 18, 2015
Then we saw the dreaded bull ant (these ants are an inch long and inject an acid that REALLY hurts). Poor DD has been bitten by these several times (but not yesterday!) I was even nervous taking these photos because the ants are so aggressive!
Outdoor Fun / Science / Where We Used to Live (Australia posts)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 2, 2010 · Last modified July 21, 2020
But then after our picnic lunch we went down closer to the (now mostly dry) river bed and saw lots of little critters– a little frog, a cicada coming out of its shell and a large 6-inch/15 cm praying mantis. By the way, once the cicada has dried, it is orange and black we just happened on it in the ten minutes or so when it’s still drying and the...
Outdoor Fun / Science / Where We Used to Live (Australia posts)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 2, 2010 · Last modified May 18, 2015
LD spotted another cicada just about to emerge from its shell (this time in our backyard). I didn’t get the camera in time for the initial emergence, but I promised LD to put pictures up. To be honest, I find this as fascinating as the kids!! How amazing nature is!!
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.
