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 (Age 4) / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Math: Preschool Math / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 17, 2013 · Last modified January 28, 2018
Each year at the end of the year, I put together a post that looks back at our school year. ED has had a great year. She was 4 this year and turned 5 this spring. We homeschool together… so ED participates with my older two kids in all their activities. Some of these units (like the 5 senses) were mainly for ED, others were mainly for the older kids, but...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 12, 2013
One question homeschoolers often ask each other is, “Will you do school during the summer?” For us, the answer is… some of the time. We take vacations when it suits us even when (or maybe especially when!) public school kids are in school. We also take vacation trips in the summer since some of our the kids’ cousins don’t homeschool and we try to catch up with them once a...
Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 31, 2013 · Last modified March 26, 2016
The weather feels like summer and we had a week away, but we actually haven’t quite brought our school year to a close. We have a couple of weeks left partly because we haven’t done our end-of-year testing yet. As part of the requirements for our state, the kids have to take a national exam (there are several to choose from). The tests are graded elsewhere, we receive the results...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Preschool for ED - Fall 2011 (age 3 1/2) / History: Geography Activities / Homeschool Den / Montessori (general info) / Must Read / Science: Rain Forests
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 21, 2013 · Last modified November 2, 2022
World Animal Packet: 100+ page packet focusing on the animals on every continent! It includes Montessori 3-Part Cards, Activity Sheets for every continent, printable continent cards, a world animal game, world animal pin map activity, and more! As I mentioned on Friday, ED has been working on her world geography. She has spent a couple of weeks going over the 7 continents again and working with some Montessori 3-part cards...
Freebies / History: Africa Unit / History: Geography Activities / Montessori (general info) / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 17, 2013 · Last modified August 15, 2020
FREE Montessori World Pin Map Printable You can make your own Montessori Style World Pin Map with this free printable! While my older kids were learning a lot about the location of the specific countries of Africa, my preschooler was working on world geography again. I thought I’d share some of the activities ED has been doing the past week or two. As always, we started out by singing the...
Games for Thinking and Learning / History: Africa Unit / History: Geography Activities / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 14, 2013 · Last modified March 3, 2016
We have been playing a couple of wonderful geography games in our homeschool. We have the Africa version, but you can also buy these same games in a version of Europe, Asia, or the Americas. The first is a card game called WorldWise Geography (Africa) I got for just a couple of dollars (it’s a different version that the one I linked to. It looks like the game has been...
This Mother’s Day we celebrate… The Moment We Became Moms: The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new. — Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh A new baby is like the beginning of all things-wonder, hope, a dream of possibilities. — Eda J. Le Shan When I stopped seeing my mother with the...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Must Read / Trips We've Taken
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 2, 2013 · Last modified March 16, 2016
Dear Friends, I thought I’d spend a post just talking about our homeschool life in general. I find it therapeutic to write about how things are really going since single-themed posts (you know, about commas or slavery) don’t really give a thorough picture of life on the home front. It’s 10 pm on Wednesday evening. I’ve finally left LD’s room and the kids are in bed. Whew! Hubby is currently in Australia and...
History: Africa Unit / History: American History / History: Slavery and the Civil War / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 30, 2013 · Last modified January 31, 2019
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and Slavery in America As many of you know, we have been studying Africa this year in our homeschool. As we finished up our studies of West Africa, we spent about a week learning about the Transatlantic Slave Trade and about slavery in general. My kids had not yet studied this in history. We read a number of books… most of them had an incredible impact on...
History: Africa Unit / Must Read / Trips We've Taken
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 23, 2013 · Last modified March 16, 2016
As I mentioned yesterday, the kids are raising money to buy some livestock for Heifer International. When I looked on the map, I saw that the Heifer has various learning centers around the country. We called and made arrangements to visit Shepherd’s Spring in Maryland. Oh my goodness, what an amazing trip we had!!! The program director was so engaging with the kids and she led us on a 3+...
History: Africa Unit / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 22, 2013 · Last modified February 20, 2017
One of the lovely things about homeschooling is that we can reach out to our community — both near and far. The kids and I helped a bit here in our community by volunteering at the local food pantry during the fall. They bagged apples and passed them out to people who came to the bi-weekly food bank. This semester, we’re doing a service project that spins off from our...
History: Africa Unit / Homeschool Den / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 18, 2013 · Last modified March 16, 2016
The Internet is so wonderful because you connect with and make friends with people from all over the world. I’ve made some good friends through my years of blogging with whom I email pretty regularly. One of the friends we’ve had for years live in the Gambia… and they sent us a care package that fit in absolutely perfectly with our studies of West Africa!! The kids were SO SO...
Homeschool Den / Math General Posts / Must Read / Science
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 24, 2013 · Last modified March 10, 2016
Last week we spent the week doing a brief unit on measurement — the imperial units. We didn’t touch on the metric system at all. I wanted the kids to come away knowing the basic facts like 16 tablespoons in a cup and 4 quarts in a gallon. Day 1: I brought out a number of different bottles, cups and measuring spoons and the kids and I went over what...
Freebies / History: World Religions / Homeschool Den / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 13, 2013 · Last modified March 3, 2016
I felt it was important to talk to the kids a bit about the newly elected pope, Pope Francis. We’ve been listening to the news and talking about it a bit, but I wanted to go into a little more detail tomorrow morning and made some pages for them to add to their history notebook. We are not Catholic, but Grandma is. My Mom died a couple of years before LD...
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.
