Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Freebies / History: Africa Unit / History: World Religions / Homeschool Den / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 19, 2013 · Last modified March 16, 2016
This year we are studying World Cultures and our focus has been on Africa. Before we delve further into the culture and history of northern Africa, I wanted to help the kids understand a bit about Islam. Here is a set of worksheets I made for the kids as we learned a bit about Islam. This might also be helpful if you are doing an introduction to world religions. You...
Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 13, 2013 · Last modified August 19, 2018
Someone had a great question for me yesterday. Since I usually just post about one topic at a time on the blog she wondered what else we cover each day. I thought I’d stick my answer into its own post since other’s might be scratching their heads wondering if we have regular stuff we cover. Here was my answer… We usually have one or two units going on… right now...
A few nights ago as I watched the evening news, I heard a statistic that really startled me. The story was about the teen activist who was shot by the Taliban in Pakistan for arguing for girls’ education. At the end of the segment ABC World News said that 32 million girls don’t go to school. Wow! The World Bank Education Statistics Newsletter confirmed that and even had an interesting graphic: It looks...
History: American History / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Trips We've Taken
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 28, 2012 · Last modified August 18, 2016
Over the course of the week we met families from Georgia, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Ohio and New York who had come Colonial Williamsburg for the homeschool experience. During homeschool week they had lots (and lots) of children’s activities. Every activity we went to was absolutely terrific and educational. Here are some of the things we attended during the week: We did both the normal orientation walk as well...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 27, 2012 · Last modified March 16, 2019
Lots of people have shared their school plans for this next year in the not-back-to-school blog hop: curriculum week. In fact, I shared our preschool curriculum plans several weeks ago. Now finally, here are our basic plans for DD and LD this next year. While they work on their own levels for math and language arts, we do most of our other units together. As you’ll see, much of our day...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Preschool at Home / Homeschool Den / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 7, 2012 · Last modified March 9, 2016
Last week we started back to school, but I thought I’d spend a few minutes sharing our overall goals this for this next semester. I’ll start off sharing our plans for ED’s preschool. Early next week I’ll share the plans for DD (age 6) and LD (almost 9). Math This year I decided to go with Right Start Math Level A for ED (age 4). I did this curriculum with...
A couple of years ago we bought a geography board game called 10 Days in Europe that has been a wonderful addition to our homeschool. It is so much fun, I really recommend it for anyone looking for a new game to add to your collection. I play this game with my 6 and 8 year olds, though I would say it’s more suited to the 8+ crowd (wonderful even...
History: Ancient Aztecs, Incas and Mayans / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 15, 2012 · Last modified February 17, 2016
Did you know that more than $90 billion a year is spent on chocolate around the world? On Valentine’s American spend around $700 million on chocolate! These numbers are expected to grow as the population increases and the number of people in the developing world who can afford chocolate increases. Part of our study of the Mayans and Aztecs was to learn a bit more about the history of chocolate. ...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 8, 2012
This is the fifth post in a series about planning for the new school year. Here are the previous posts in this series: Here are the questions I consider. This post looks a back at our school year. I talk about what went well and what could use some improvement. I talked about how I assess our homeschooling philosophy: Am I happy with *how* we are homeschooling? I talked a lot about...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 7, 2012 · Last modified May 3, 2016
This is the fourth post helping describe how I go about planning for the new school year. Here are the previous posts in this series: Here are the questions I consider. This post looks a back at our school year. I talk about what went well and what could use some improvement. Yesterday’s post talked about how I assess our homeschooling philosophy: Am I happy with *how* we are homeschooling? I...
History: American History / Homeschool Den / Mom Stories
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 28, 2012
Memorial Day was formerly known as Decoration Day and started after the Civil War to commemorate the fallen Union Soldiers. By the 20th century Memorial Day was extended to honor all Americans who have died in wars. Last week we spent the entire week with my family: my folks, my sister, brother-in-law and their three kids. We had some long conversations about the members of our family who have served...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Language Arts: Reading
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 15, 2012 · Last modified March 14, 2019
Sometimes it’s a bit hard to describe how homeschooling works. Lots of things happen simultaneously and our read aloud time is the best example of this. This semester our read aloud time has been mostly centered around American history (though we also read a book about Isaac Newton). We were studying the American West and so we read the Sign of the Beaver, Little House in the Big Woods, and The...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Interviews with other Homeschoolers
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 19, 2012 · Last modified April 13, 2016
This is a continuation of my interview with Brandy, author of Half-a-Hundred Acre Wood. If you missed yesterday’s post (Part I) be sure to go back and read her description of classical education and the weekly educational community they participate in, Classical Conversations. The second part of this interview focuses a bit more on their day-to-day homeschool style. I often ask others if they have a particular style of homeschooling. How...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 21, 2012 · Last modified August 13, 2016
Hi again! I’m Liesl. That’s a picture of me as we hiked down into the Grand Canyon in May. Love that we have the flexibility to create our own schedule… and can define what learning is! We feel that homeschooling is not just learning out of a book, it’s the experiences we have in the wider world too! 🙂 Before I tell you about myself, let me address some of...
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.
