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.) / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 22, 2012
The past month I’ve been trying to organize and tackle various parts of the house. Professional organizers have all kinds of hints for getting your life in order. Things like only handle paper once don’t organize clutter if you haven’t worn it for a year, get rid of it if they haven’t played with it for six months, box it up, if they don’t ask for it for another month...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Freebies / Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Reading / Must Read / Science / Science Experiments
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 21, 2012 · Last modified March 21, 2015
It’s been a while since I talked about the books we’re reading. We have lots of books around, plus we check out lots of books from our local library (50+ at a time!). I thought I’d highlight ten books that have been on the repeated request list. While we’ve read other books in the past couple of weeks, these are the books that I have read again and again (and...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Must Read / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Vertebrates - Invertebrates
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 20, 2012 · Last modified November 13, 2020
The science curriculum I’m using this year suggests letting the kids observe and work with mealworms. This is part of our discussion of what makes something living or not living. I purchased some from a local pet shop and came up with a few activities for the kids to do as they observe and learn about their mealworms. Before I even uttered a word, I simply handed the kids their...
Homeschool Den / Must Read / Nature / Outdoor Fun
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 19, 2012 · Last modified February 19, 2017
In the garden last night we found another tomato hornworm which had left a trail of destruction as it ate through much of one of our plants. This time it wasn’t doing so well as wasp eggs had obviously hatched and was eating it from the inside out. Braconid wasps lay their eggs inside the caterpillar. As they hatch they eat their way out, killing the caterpillar in the process....
Homeschool Den / Must Read / Science / Science Experiments
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 17, 2012
We had some free-form science play for a couple of days earlier in the week. The kids made a number of slime concoctions using various recipes from a science experiment book LD has. I’m not quite sure what the kids learned from this, but LD made a bit of “dragon’s blood” yesterday by mixing various ingredients (corn syrup, peanut butter, dish liquid soap, dye, etc.). Maybe a bit about viscosity?!...
Freebies / Homeschool Den / Math General Posts / Math--Addition / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 16, 2012 · Last modified March 9, 2016
My daughter was standing right next to me when I made ED’s domino sheet (the ones I shared last week). She wanted her own math worksheets where she could create her own problems. Together, she and I designed simple addition and subtraction sheets. She rushed right over and put them in her math workbox! They can be used with dice; DD used 12-sided and 20-sided dice. Download the free Addition-Subtraction...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Freebies / Homeschool Den / Math General Posts / Math--Addition / Math: Preschool Math / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 15, 2012 · Last modified March 9, 2016
This week we’ve added in a bit of domino math to ED’s math time. I know there are lots of domino math sheets out there including the domino mats and cards from mathwire.com, at Making Learning Fun (domino addition, subtraction or multiplication), and a domino worksheet made by Erica over at Confessions of a Homeschooler. I needed one that wouldn’t overwhelm ED, though. I wanted just a few problems on the...
History: Native American Indians Unit / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Nature / Outdoor Fun
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 14, 2012 · Last modified December 16, 2018
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about finding an ‘arrowhead‘ (really a hafted knife point) in the woods right behind our house. Yesterday morning we had the county archaeologist over to survey the site where we found the hafted knife. He examined it closely and said it was most likely a Piscataway Stemmed Point. We then took him into the woods to show him the site where it...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Interviews with other Homeschoolers / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 13, 2012
I heard about a movie that is being produced out in Los Angeles that focuses on education, specifically the validity of homeschooling as an alternative to the industrial school model. According to their site, “the film will examine the numerous approaches to home learning, exploring both its history and recent growth.” The movie will follow an ordinary family in their quest to educate their children. You can read more about...
Here are more of our geometry activities this past week or so: ED and DD worked with parallel and perpendicular lines. This is something that ED is also doing in her Right Start Math-A. First, they made the lines with popcycle sticks, then found perpendicular and parallel lines around the house. LD and DD made a foldable about lines, line segments, intersecting lines, etc. for their math journal. Types of...
History: Geologic Timeline (Montessori) / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Outdoor: Fossils / Science / Science: Dinosaurs Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 11, 2012
This might be of interest to the dinosaur-loving tots (and parents!) out there. This news from last month passed me by until a couple of days ago. Did you hear that a new species of feathered dinosaur was discovered in Bavaria, in Southern Germany? The fossil of a Sciurumimus albersdoerferi, a carnivorous dinosaur that lived about 150 million years ago in the late Jurassic period shows the first evidence of feathered theropod dinosaurs that are...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Interviews with other Homeschoolers
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 10, 2012
Yesterday on the Diane Rhem Show on NPR there was an interview with a homeschooling family. If you’re interested, you can listen to the podcast here: Quinn Cummings: “The Year of Learning Dangerously”. Quinn Cummings is an actor, author and inventor who has been homeschooling her daughter for four years.
Freebies / Homeschool Den / Math General Posts / Math--Geometry / Montessori (general info) / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 10, 2012
As I mentioned last week, we started a new unit on geometry. We’ve been busy talking about rays, intersecting lines, parallel lines, line segments, angles and more! Over the weekend, I came across a set of geometry cards made by Homemade Montessori that will come in handy! I thought I’d share this great find in case anyone else finds them useful. I am always so grateful to people who share...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Science: Human Body Unit / Science: The 5 Senses
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 9, 2012 · Last modified June 26, 2020
Five Senses Unit – The Sense of Taste All week the kids have been waiting impatiently for the taste activities! LD remembered doing this three or four years ago and couldn’t wait! We first talked about the tongue and where you sense different tastes. We made a cute tongue model and labeled the different areas. I’ll show you how we put it together with a quick picture collage: How we made a...
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.
