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) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Toddler/Preschool Activities / Freebies / Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Reading / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 19, 2012 · Last modified March 7, 2016
We are using the Bob Books to help ED learn to read. She is just learning to sound out CVC words. While my other two kids learned to read early (age 3) using the Bob Book series (and others), my third child has her own pace and style of learning. She is excited about writing words, loves to color, and has amazing pencil skills. I made these worksheets for her. These would never (never,...
We celebrated Father’s Day by going camping this weekend. It’s a bit of work getting everything ready, but once we’re out there the time away is so refreshing! The highlight was a beautiful two-hour hike we did together. I loved watching Dad teaching the kids to skip rocks. I have fond memories of doing that with my Dad that as a kid! It was picturesque and peaceful and just a...
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. ...
Freebies / History: Geography Activities / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Science / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats / Science: Rain Forests
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 14, 2012 · Last modified November 15, 2015
On Tuesday I shared the biomes pin map that the kids and I used. We looked not only at where the desert, tundra and grassland regions were, but took note of the rain forest regions of the world. Next I brought out the rain forest plant cards I had made several years ago. Although our main goal was to look at a history of chocolate to go along with our...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Interviews with other Homeschoolers / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 13, 2012 · Last modified April 16, 2015
Today I have the privilege of introducing Dayna Martin. She is a well-known leader in the unschooling community. She has been interviewed in dozens of television and radio pieces about radical unschooling. She speaks nationally and internationally at unschooling conferences. Dayna is a pioneer who has been at the forefront of the conscious parenting and unschooling movement for the past decade. Author of Radical Unschooling: A Revolution Has Begun, and...
Freebies / History: Ancient Aztecs, Incas and Mayans / History: Geography Activities / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Science / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats / Science: Earth Science Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 12, 2012 · Last modified February 16, 2016
Are you asking yourself, “What in the world is a biomes pin map?” It’s a map that shows where the rain forests, deserts, grasslands, forest and tundra regions are located. A pin map is when you stick straight pins into the labels so kids can pinpoint where things are located. There you go, sounds fancy, but really it’s not! 🙂 Before we really delved into our study of rain...
History: American History / History: Ancient Aztecs, Incas and Mayans / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 11, 2012 · Last modified February 17, 2016
Last week we started a unit about the Aztec and Incas. This is a unit I’ve had ready for more than a year (books gathered, maps and sheets printed and ready for use). LD and DD insisted we dive in (in part because they knew we’d study the history of chocolate along with it!). We started out with a look at the Aztecs. We read this lovely story about the...
Today there was a huge event down at the mall in Washington D.C. to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Girl Scouts. DD was a Daisy Scout this past year and we went to the huge celebration with my niece (who is a Junior Girl Scout). Wow! What an event! They announced that there were an estimated quarter of a million people there! There were girls of all ages from...
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...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 6, 2012 · Last modified May 3, 2016
There are so many different styles of homeschooling and each family will pick and choose the elements that suits their homeschool style. If your homeschooling is anything like ours it evolves continually as you find what suits each child. Some of the homeschool styles you may have heard about include: Classical education Charlotte Mason Montessori Unschooling Unit Studies Virtual Homeschooling Waldorf Eclectic Living Books — Well, I’ve never heard anything...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 5, 2012 · Last modified December 13, 2016
I started a series of posts to help explain how we plan for the next year. In yesterday’s post, I listed out the questions I ask myself as I plunge into the planning process. The next few posts I’ll tell you my answers to these questions. I’ll also tell you some of the books, websites and other resources I use in the planning process. Today, I’m going to look over...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 4, 2012
Someone recently asked me, “How do you plan for your school year?” I thought this would be an easy answer, but the more I thought about it, the more complicated my answer became. There are so many things I do as I plan. I thought I would answer this in a series of posts. Today I’ll share the general questions I ask myself. In the coming days, I’ll share the...
Since I’m on the topic of famous aviators, there is a fascinating conference being held in Washington DC this weekend to present and discuss research findings about the famous female aviator, Amelia Earhart. She and her navigator, Fred Noonan, disappeared in 1937 during her attempt to make a round-the-world flight. For seventy-five years no one knew what had happened to them. Some thought they crashed and sank. At 7:42 on July...
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.
