Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Ages 2-6: Fire Safety / Health / Homeschool Den / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Human Body Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 8, 2012 · Last modified March 4, 2016
A couple of weeks ago I saw some cute preschool activities about dental health at 2 Teaching Mommies, I was inspired! We didn’t get to Amber’s ideas, but we did fit in the science activities from 1st grade with Miss Snowden. After talking about the germs in our house (see this post), it seemed fitting to talk about the germs in our mouths. I hard-boiled six white eggs and we...
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...
Health / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Human Body Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 2, 2012 · Last modified April 14, 2015
Our germ unit took about a week to complete in part because of the amazing germ-experiment we did (more about that next week… the experiment was awesome!). We talked about the major types of germs: bacteria, viruses, fungi and protozoa. While fungi can produce athlete’s foot and protozoa can cause giardia and malaria, we didn’t go into much detail about those. Some sources also consider helminths (worms) a germ as...
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 / 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...
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...
Science / Science Experiments / Science: Garden Science
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 8, 2011 · Last modified March 22, 2016
Plants, plants, plants!! That’s still the main focus of our homeschooling life. The kids are enthralled by the growing process this year. The kids tenderly attend to their plots in the garden. We watch each strawberry ripen eagerly. They rush to inspect the blueberries and peas forming! They help bring in the lettuce for our supper each evening.And, they/we are loving the Junior Master Gardener handbook — and are enjoying...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 12, 2011 · Last modified March 3, 2016
Here are the other two experiments LD and the girls did. It sure was nice just stepping back to watch the kids do this themselves this time round. Color Changing Milk 1) Pour milk onto a plate 2) Add three drops of food coloring (red, blue, yellow) 3) Place a Q-tip in dishsoap. Then carefully place the Q-tip in the center of the plate without moving it around. The colors...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 11, 2011 · Last modified October 22, 2015
LD was itching to do some of his old science experiments this morning. We had all of the directions collected on a 3X5 ring (from when we did them a year+ ago). LD leafed through and chose several experiments. Here is the first one he and the girls did. It’s been over a year since we last did this experiment, but it still had a real “wow” factor for all...
Science / Science Experiments / Science: Earth Science Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 31, 2011 · Last modified July 19, 2018
Just adding this in on Tuesday: I found out today that I have Pneumonia which is why I’ve been feeling ever so lousy. I first saw this activity last year at The Learning Ark. It fit in perfectly with our Earth Science unit. There is also a similar activity using a hard-boiled egg in the book we are using for this unit, How the Earth Works by Michelle O’Brien-Palmer. One...
Ages 2-6: Fall Theme / Science / Science Experiments
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 11, 2010
Some time back, I shared our Indian corn activity. It’s now growing quite tall in big pots at the end of our dining room table! So here’s the corn after about 1 week of being watered. After a while we decided to plant the corn in some empty flower pots. The corn grew steadily. And now it’s about 12-15 inches high! Unfortunately, the corn cob attracted lots of fruit flies. ...
Ages 2-6: Bird Unit / Ages 2-6: Theme Time (age 2-4) / Science Experiments
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 18, 2010
To make our bird unit especially appealing to LD we, of course, had to add in some science egg-speriments! While DD and I were unable to smash our eggs… LD did!! We’re not quite sure why, but then when he tried it with a second egg he couldn’t break it no matter how hard he tried. Anyway, this experiment was designed to show how strong egg shells are and how...
Ages 2-6: Bird Unit / Ages 2-6: Theme Time (age 2-4) / Science Experiments
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 18, 2010
We looked at the air bubbles coming out of this egg when it was placed in vinegar and talked about why the shell is porous. This lets the growing embryo get oxygen. We then talked about how since it is porous it can let things through — like acid (vinegar), acid rain and pollutants. We talked about DDT (how eagles nearly became extinct)– and how poisons, pesticides and so forth...
Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc) / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 3, 2010
I just learned about a science website called The Lab of Mr. Q. Wow! What a find! This 8th grade science teacher created a science curriculum for the young elementary ages. He offers the Life Science student and parent texts for FREE! His Life Science curriculum includes these units: 1) Basic Needs 2) Biomes 3) Life Cycles 4) Classification 5) Food Webs 6) Senses 7) Body Organs 8) Cells 9)...
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.
