Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Engineering - STEM Activities / Engineering Challenges / Homeschool Den / Outdoor Fun
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 23, 2012 · Last modified May 6, 2016
The Parachute Challenge! I supplied the kids with cups, yarn, tape, plastic bags, scissors, and a hole puncher. Their challenge was build a parachute that could safely transport objects down from a 12 foot drop. They got busy building and testing their parachutes out with coins. Then they were ready for the big test — a long drop with raw eggs. Our Results? I’m happy to report all...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / History: Geography Activities / History: This is the United States-Unit Study (grade 1) / Homeschool Den / Science: Earth Science Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 22, 2012 · Last modified April 1, 2016
NAME THAT CONTINENT: One morning in collection (our group time) I brought out a beach ball globe. We took turns tossing the ball around the circle. Each time someone caught the ball they had to look at where their thumb had landed and had to name that continent. The kids quickly became silly, but we did manage to get a few rounds in for each of them. Another preschool geography...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Interviews with other Homeschoolers / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 21, 2012 · Last modified April 13, 2016
In this series, I have had the privilege of interviewing other homeschoolers from across the country. Here to tell us how her family got started homeschooling and what her family’s homeschool style looks like is Erica, the author of the popular homeschooling blog, Confessions of a Homeschooler. She has developed her own homeschooling curriculum including the popular Letter of the Week and K4 curriculums, Expedition Earth, Road Trip USA and...
Freebies / History: American History / History: American West Unit / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 20, 2012 · Last modified September 19, 2017
As I mentioned yesterday, we’ve been reading a book about a girl who travels West on the Oregon Trail with a group of other families. Since we’ve been reading for quite some time now, I thought we could jump right in and play the Oregon Trail File Folder Game I found at File Folder Fun. I asked them a couple of questions to prepare to play the game in another day...
History: American History / History: American West Unit / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 19, 2012 · Last modified August 4, 2018
We’ve been studying the American West this semester. The kids and I have been thoroughly engrossed in a wonderful book called Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie: The Oregon Trail Diary of Hattie Campbell, 1847 (Dear America Series) (Affiliate link). It’s the story of a girl making her way West along the Oregon Trail with her family. At one point the pioneers have to struggle up and then back down a...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Nature / Outdoor Fun
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 18, 2012 · Last modified April 1, 2016
We do this activity about once a year, but it’s always a hit with the kids! Back as a child I always did this with pine cones, but since we didn’t have pine cones readily accessible we improvised using a bit of bark. The kids spread peanut butter all over the bark and then poured bird seed on it. Our windows are all quite high off the...
Nature / Outdoor Fun / Science / Science: Garden Science / Science: Plant Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 17, 2012 · Last modified March 22, 2016
It’s that time of year again! Our dining room table and a second table are covered with dirt planters! Last week the kids and I planted some seeds together. The kids are always excited to watch the seedlings start to grow. You can tell the kids helped since there are so many seedlings in that one pot to the right!! We also weeded and worked on one...
Engineering - STEM Activities / Engineering Challenges / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 16, 2012 · Last modified May 6, 2016
Challenge your kids to think creatively with this quick activity. This week we had to do our Think Challenge on Monday since I knew I’d be out of commission. The kids were thrilled; they really love these activities! Their challenge was to build as tall a tower as they could with marshmallows and straws. I let ED use wooden skewers because the straws were challenging to work with. Here are...
Homeschooling in the News / Language Arts: Spelling
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 15, 2012
A Six-Year-old Goes on to the National Spelling Bee A six year old homeschooler from Virginia is going to compete in the Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee after winning the Prince William County spelling bee where she competed against elementary and middle school students last Friday. She started competing in her first spelling bees at the age of 3 1/2. Congratulations to Lori and good luck! See the article and...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Homeschool: Random Thoughts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 14, 2012 · Last modified February 9, 2017
I’ve been posting a lot lately. Now it’s time to step back and remind you that this is definitely only a glimpse of what we do or what life is really like for us. You are seeing only a five to fifteen minute snippet of our day or perhaps you’re seeing snippets of several days all organized nicely into one post. And while I love, love coming up and planning ...
Homeschool Den / Math General Posts / Math--Multiplication
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 13, 2012
LD has learned most of his multiplication facts, but he still needs that extra practice. Here are some online games that he has really enjoyed. And best thing is, they’re free to play! Multiplication.com has quite a selection of multiplication games. Here are a few of the online games that have been great for reviewing those facts. The Knight and the Princess Multiplication Game: This has to be one of the kids very...
History: American West Unit / Recipes
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 12, 2012 · Last modified March 21, 2018
Lewis and Clark Lapbooks: I saw a wonderful set of lapbook materials on Lewis and Clark and on the American West over at Dynamic 2 Moms. We used some of their materials to make notebook pages for the kids’ history notebooks. Also the US mint website had a number of really great printables about the journey of Lewis and Clark because of the series of nickles that were released in...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Homeschool Den / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 11, 2012
There are some really interesting statistics out there about educating preschoolers in America. Did you know that enrollment for preschoolers has increased 679% between 1985 and 2008? In 1985 0.2 million preschoolers were enrolled in school in the USA while in 2008 this had increased to 1.2 million! But in reality, still only a little over half of all 3-4 year olds are in school (52% in 2009) (Digest of Education Statistics,...
Ages 2-6: Fire Safety / Health / Homeschool Den / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Human Body Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 8, 2012 · Last modified March 4, 2016
A couple of weeks ago I saw some cute preschool activities about dental health at 2 Teaching Mommies, I was inspired! We didn’t get to Amber’s ideas, but we did fit in the science activities from 1st grade with Miss Snowden. After talking about the germs in our house (see this post), it seemed fitting to talk about the germs in our mouths. I hard-boiled six white eggs and we...
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.
