Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / How to Start Homeschooling
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 8, 2016 · Last modified July 9, 2017
Up until the last minute, I knew exactly what our first challenge would be… You know it, I know it… We should discuss organization, right? It’s at the core of keeping things running smoothly during the year. But then much to my surprise, an idea popped into my head. I realized there was something more important to tap into first… and this post kind of wrote itself! Cartoon graphic purchased...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Organizing and Cleaning / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc) / Technology
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published July 18, 2016 · Last modified August 19, 2018
This summer I am spending some time looking at some education apps, tools and websites. I thought I’d talk about a few that I’ve heard other educators mention so that you have a chance to look at them before the school year starts as well. 🙂 These look like they might be a fun way to incorporate a bit of technology in those “checking for understanding” moments. I don’t know...
When we were planning our trip out West, I purchased a book of some of America’s best geological sites. I read about the Crater of Diamonds state park and the kids were beside themselves at the thought of being able to search for *real* diamonds!! This state park is the world’s eighth largest diamond-bearing volcanic crater. We camped in the state park and tried our hand at diamond mining! Many...
Just a few days ago, the kids and I got back from a 7,000 mile cross-country trip. We visited more than 10 national parks and monuments as well as a number of famous state parks. We spent time looking for diamonds in the world’s only diamond mine open to the public, had a long tour of Canyon De Chelly which we had studied about this spring with a Navajo guide...
Highlighting Past Posts / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Science / Science Experiments / Science Units
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 24, 2016 · Last modified May 15, 2016
Today I’m going to talk about the science units we covered in our homeschool this year AND what we didn’t get to because we ran out of time!!! My plans are always a bit more ambitious than what we actually cover, but even so it felt like we accomplished a lot! 🙂 This year the kids were in Grades 2, 5 and 7, but below you’ll also find some resources...
Freebies / History and World Cultures Units
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 23, 2016 · Last modified May 15, 2016
In today’s post, I thought I would re-cap our school year. Looking back, it’s been a really great year! The chart below shares links to some of the history units we covered in our homeschool. As you’ll see below, I made notebook pages and packets to go along with most of the units we covered. 🙂 This year the kids were in Grades 2, 5 and 7. We do our...
Kindergarten Math / Math General Posts / Math--Multiplication
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 18, 2016 · Last modified July 3, 2018
Multiplication and Division Bundle – 250+ pages of Worksheets, Games & Activities (15 pdfs and growing!) When my youngest was 8, she took on the big math task of learning all of her multiplication tables. As my daughter moved into learning her multiplication facts I looked around for the kind of multiplication practice that would help her. The math book she was using went through the math facts a bit...
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 May 3, 2016
Someone once asked me, “How do you plan for your school year?” Here are 10 steps you can take to figure out what next year’s homeschool will look like for your family. These are some of the questions I ask myself as I try to determine what we’ll cover and what skills the kids need to develop. Remember, your path as a homeschooling family will be completely different from anyone...
Freebies / Science: Water Unit / Science: Weather Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 1, 2016 · Last modified September 3, 2020
Today I have some free cloud worksheets for you. Why? I’m in the process of making a Road Trip Travel Log for the kids for a cross-country trip this summer. This is just one of the sections, but it made sense to share this as a separate pdf file as well so that those of you working on a weather unit can find these pages more easily if they are...
Elem-Children's Music 1 (6 yr old) / Music
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 4, 2016 · Last modified December 31, 2018
Today, I wanted to mention a few fabulous free music resources that may be of interest if you are covering (or plan to cover) music appreciation in your homeschool. Thse include composer cards, lapbook pieces, and posters. Back a number of years ago we had some of the posters up of famous in our homeschool room. At the time, I focused on one composer a week and we listened to...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 11, 2016 · Last modified March 5, 2023
ED is working on the /er/ sound. She really enjoys the spelling word sort activities and enjoys playing these board games, so I made a new spelling activity for her with a desert scene! These cover words spelled with ur such as burn, turn, nurse, church words spelled with ir such as girl, bird, shirt, dirt, circle words spelled with er such as summer, mother, desert words spelled with or...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Organizing and Cleaning / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 11, 2016
When things get disorganized I feel really scattered and wind up dropping the ball. There’s a lot for homeschoolers to keep track of, right? So, how do we keep on top of everything? Being brutally honest here… I/We can’t always do it all! Homeschooling is challenging because there are so many different areas to juggle, not just the academics. We just do the very best we can! I’ve found there...
Homeschool Den / Language Arts - Grammar Spelling Reading Writing Categories / Language Arts - Grammar Worksheets / Language Arts: Spelling / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 1, 2016 · Last modified September 13, 2016
Language arts is a subject that is always in progress, so it doesn’t make quite as snazzy of a year in review wrap-up, but I thought this might be a good opportunity to share some of our free grammar resources again in a nice, organized table form since those still are so popular. The chart also includes links to our popular Homeschool Writing Workshop series. I’ve also included links to...
It has been quite a while since I last talked about music in our homeschool. Things are going really well for the kids. Right now we’re using a number of fun Christmas music activities to help the girls learn the notes and symbols. We’ve been playing Susan Paradis’ Christmas Light Bingo to keep reviewing the various music symbols: Although ED learns to play pieces pretty quickly on the piano, she...
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.
