Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 2, 2014
Over the holidays I spent a lot of time away from the computer (blogging, that is), but I did pull together plans for the new semester. Here’s what’s on the agenda: Science: We’ll be starting an earth science unit on weather, wind and water. We’ll be starting with an overview of the Earth’s 4 systems and then will learn about the atmosphere before continuing on to wind, weather, etc. daily...
History: India Unit / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Math General Posts / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 12, 2013 · Last modified March 12, 2016
Tis the season to be flexible! Some days we get quite a bit done, other days… not so much. I try to keep myself calm about that. Yesterday, for example, all our friends had a snow day. Often time we do school anyway, but the appeal of sledding and playing outside with friends won over! Today, we were back to the normal homeschool schedule. Here are some of the things...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 26, 2013 · Last modified July 27, 2018
I thought I would put a post together that helps give a flavor of what our daily homeschooling routine looks like. So many of my posts are compilations of our activities, but they don’t actually show what happens day-to-day. It’s about time to do that again (and I enjoy reading these posts later as the kids get older!) We have finally gotten back to a relatively normal schedule. (If you...
Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Random Thoughts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 3, 2013
Sometimes we need an infusion of sunshine and happiness into our homeschool. There are times when the kids nitpick at each other, poke, needle and whine… we all (including me!) need to step back and ask ourselves if we are being as kind, thoughtful and caring as we can be! One day for our writing workshop, we read the book, Have You Filled a Bucket Today? A Guide to Daily...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 23, 2013 · Last modified November 17, 2015
We’ve been back to school for about a month, I wanted to share how homeschool life is going. I love the posts where other homeschoolers share what they aspire to each day — and that’s what this post is. Not that everything on the list get checked off, but if we were to have an ideal day it might look something like this (this is the list that floats around...
Homeschool Den / Kindergarten / Language Arts: Writing / Science / Science: Human Body Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 17, 2013 · Last modified September 5, 2017
Over the summer, I stumbled across the Center for Disease Control’s Science Ambassador Program. What a great find! It has a series of lessons (maybe mini-unit would be a better term for them) on all kinds of various topics with challenging activities for students to learn about. Topics include — autism, birth defect, Hantavirus, HIV/Aids… and many more. What I like about their lessons is that they require the students...
Freebies / Homeschool Den / Language Arts - Grammar Worksheets / Language Arts: Spelling / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 17, 2013 · Last modified January 3, 2020
I made this spelling review sheet for the /er/ sound. We use All About Spelling Program (affiliate link) (which we love, love, love!) and this goes along with several of the lessons from books 2 and 3. Spelling has never come naturally to LD in particular, so he needs a bit more review from time to time. Feel free to download this for your child/students! Spelling: sound /er/ — er...
Holiday: Halloween / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Recipes
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 27, 2012 · Last modified October 25, 2018
When we lived in Australia, we couldn’t buy candy corn. I looked around for a recipe and found something online that has worked well. Now it’s become our family tradition to make our own candy corn each fall! Here’s how we made it: We put these 3 ingredients in a saucepan: 1/2 cup sugar 1/3 cup corn syrup 2 1/2 Tablespoons butter As soon as I turned the stove on...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 17, 2020 · Last modified May 6, 2023
Are you homeschooling Kindergarten or Grade 1 for the first time or looking for some fresh new ideas? It’s hard to know where to start, right?! There are lots of possibilities and picking a starting point can be overwhelming! I hope this post will give you some ideas and inspiration for a wonderful homeschool year ahead! FREE Curriculum Resource Guide for Kindergarten-Grade 1 I was often asked what we did...
Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Homeschool Den / Kindergarten
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 31, 2019 · Last modified June 17, 2020
This past week I’ve had a couple of emails from readers who will be homeschooling Kindergarten or Grade 1 for the first time. It’s hard to know where to start, right?! There are lots of possibilities and picking a starting point can be overwhelming! I hope this post will give you some ideas and inspiration for a wonderful homeschool year ahead! For us, homeschooling was not a big change from...
Today, I’m sharing the free homeschool conference hand-outs I made for the conference I’m speaking at this weekend (Friday & Saturday). I also wanted to share some of the helpful homeschool resources we have here on the blog. Welcome to those of you from the conference and/or are stopping by for the first time!! It’s been so fun to meet and talk with so many of you!! To my long-time,...
Hi Everyone, Today I want to share the floor with Sra. Morato. Her online classes include elementary Spanish (for Kindergarten through Grade 6), Spanish 1 and Spanish 2 (36-week classes). This past year I have gotten to know her well and she is actually now teaching my girls Spanish (via video lessons and face-to-face meetings)! Let me share the story of how that happened!! It’s a funny story, one day while...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Organizing and Cleaning / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc) / How to Start Homeschooling / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published July 11, 2016 · Last modified July 7, 2020
For many of us it is mid-summer. Homeschooling seems far away still, though we know it’s lurking around the corner. We don’t want to be caught completely unprepared, right? Here are some things that we can do now to make the transition easier when we return: 1) Turn in your Notice of Intent (if your state requires one) – Get this done and turned in so you don’t have to...
Homeschool: Organizing and Cleaning / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / How to Start Homeschooling / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 1, 2014 · Last modified August 2, 2015
The back to school sales are starting up where we live… and across the other side of the country, the kids’ cousins are back in the classroom next week. With that in mind, I thought it was time to share our homeschool shopping list. We try to top up on various supplies while the back-to-school sales are on. Here are some of the things that we use in our...
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.
