Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Freebies / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Montessori (general info) / Science / Science: Vertebrates - Invertebrates
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 2, 2011
Over the past few years, we have done a lot of Montessori science work. This year I compiled a review notebook and will let DD and LD work on this as they are interested (ED will be introduced to these for the first time this year). Mostly I expect the older ones to cut out pictures from magazines and write on these sheets (pages 5 and beyond in the pack). ...
Freebies / Montessori (general info) / Science: Vertebrates - Invertebrates
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 1, 2011
This year I hope to introduce my older kids to researching things on their own. We’ll be going over a lot of the Montessori zoology curriculum again, so I thought I’d create a page to help guide them. For what it’s worth, I’ll share that with you all too.Animal Notebook Page (for the kids to do research on their own about animals they are interested in). Animal Discovery Notebook page...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool at Home / Lapbooks / Science / Science: Vertebrates - Invertebrates
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 6, 2010 · Last modified December 9, 2019
A few weeks ago, I asked DD what she wanted to learn about. She chose to study butterflies and insects. We used two lapbooks. One is no longer available. The other one was a free lapbook on butterflies from Yee Shall Know. (Website no longer available.) (If you’ve never seen any of her lapbooks, I highly recommend her free lapbooks. (Website no longer available.) They are based on the Magic...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Elem-Children's Music 1 (6 yr old) / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Kindergarten / Kindergarten Math / Math General Posts / Music / Science: Vertebrates - Invertebrates / Workboxes
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 28, 2010 · Last modified July 27, 2018
I’ve been meaning to put up a post about what we generally work on from day to day. But, with blogger not working for a while, I have a plethora of photos to share. So, here’s a glimpse of what DD (just turned 5) has been working on these past couple of weeks. Her “basics” include math, reading, handwriting, music/glockenspiel, arts&crafts; and another unit-study (a lapbook in this case, but...
Science / Science: Vertebrates - Invertebrates / Where We Used to Live (Australia posts)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 19, 2010
Last week LD was very excited about birds (wewere going over the vertebrate groups and talkedfirst for a week or so about reptiles, then for anotherfew days about birds.) He made a bird feeder and we bought bird seed tohang on our front fence. It took a while, but today wefinally had visits from the Port Lincoln (or Ringneck) Parrot.
LD and I hammered together this veryprimitive looking bird feeder. We wanted toattract the Honeyeaters (birds). He filled thecontainers with water, water and sugar, waterand honey, and water and squeezed orangejuice to see which one the birds were attractedto.
Science / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats / Science: Vertebrates - Invertebrates
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 16, 2010
We’ve seen lots of snakes skins at the ReptileCentre, but hadn’t ever seen a lizard skin. Ourreadings about reptiles talked about how lizardsshed their skins whole. Today we were excitedto find a nearly complete lizard skin (about 6inches/15cm long) floating in the water. It’s so great when nature reinforces our homelearning!! Yes, LD wanted to take it home and yes(of course) I let him. Sometimes I’m more excitedthan the kids!...
Science / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats / Science: Vertebrates - Invertebrates
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 15, 2010
Here are the bird cards I made (link to download is on the sidebar). There are smaller photos as well, but I wound up not using them (oh well), but they do tell you where these birds are located. Anyway, I chose these particular birds because I selected some short (3 to 8 minute long) videos from you-tube that I chose to show the kids. Today after sorting the five...
Science / Science: Vertebrates - Invertebrates
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 13, 2010 · Last modified July 3, 2020
The kids separated things into invertebrate and vertebrate cards. I’m pretty sure those cards were from here. Then we talked about the five vertebrate groups. I made the labels you see below. We have the 5 Animal Kingdom cards here: Vertebrate-Invertebrate Montessori Sort Cards DD used the animal sorting cards from http://www.filefolderfun.com/KindergartenScience.html that you see on the pink file folder here. By the way, we’re going to be sorting the...
Science / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats / Science: Vertebrates - Invertebrates
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 10, 2010
We’ve been reading lots of books on snakes, chameleons, lizards and various reptiles. We recently visited the Reptile Centre and yesterday visited the Desert Park which has a great selection of reptiles too. Did you know that you can easily tell a legless lizard from a snake? Lizards have ear slits and snakes don’t. Though, with the snakes we have here, I’m not sure I ever want to go close...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Theme Time (age 2-4) / Arts and Crafts / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats / Science: Vertebrates - Invertebrates
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 9, 2010 · Last modified August 29, 2020
LD: orange chameleon, DD: pink chameleon, Mom: green chameleon, ED: multicolored chameleon. While on the hunt for Eric Carle craft ideas, I went to visit two of my favorite art websites: Deep Space Sparkle and Art Projects for Kids. Art Projects for kids showed a very cute picture of a chameleon. We read this book by Eric Carle: The Mixed-Up Chameleon. (affiliate link) I had the kids watch the slide show at Eric Carle’s Website about...
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.
