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History: American History / History: American West Unit / History: Geography Activities / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 10, 2012
Our next topic was the Louisiana Purchase. Prior to 1803, the United States territory went only as far as the Mississippi River. Napoleon Bonaparte, the ruler of France, needed money for his wars in Europe and sold the Louisiana Territory to the U.S. for $15 million (3 cents an acre!). This nearly doubled the size of the United States. We’ve been using a map that shows the Louisiana Purchase and...
Freebies / Holiday: Valentine's Day / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 9, 2012 · Last modified January 27, 2016
I came across a Valentine’s Boggle Game at Teacher’s Pay Teachers. I printed it out and much to my surprise both LD and DD loved it. They did it both yesterday and today and then complained that it was too easy the second time. I promised the kids I’d make a new word hunt for them and just finished it this evening. My version is not as cute as the...
So yesterday I managed to get my Twitter account sorted out. I’m so excited to see 15 people following me already! This evening I managed to sort out my new Facebook account too, though I’m not quite sure how to add the like button in. I’m so excited to start chatting there! I even posted my first question for y’all… do you manage to get time to yourself during your...
Hi! Nice to meet you! As you may know, we will be joining the Parent’s blog team pretty soon. Our family decided we’d like to share a couple of photos of the family behind this blog. Here’s my photo for what it’s worth! (Ugh… don’t mind the fly-away hair!) When we transfer over we’ll have a photo of me and the kids to share with you as well. Do you...
Active Math Games / Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Freebies / Holiday: Valentine's Day / Math General Posts / Math--Addition / Math--Division / Math: Preschool Math / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 7, 2012 · Last modified January 22, 2015
Valentine’s Day Division Cards I made a Valentine’s Day set of division cards to use with LD over the next week or so. We use these cards to play a game called Fast Track — an idea we got from Peggy Kaye’s Games for Math. To make the board you need a large piece of butcher paper or poster board. There are three win spaces, three start spaces and various...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool for ED - Fall 2011 (age 3 1/2) / Freebies / Holiday: Valentine's Day
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 5, 2012 · Last modified January 31, 2017
ED has been working a lot on letter sounds and simple -at and -an words. I made this Valentine’s themed word matching activity for her to work on over the next couple of weeks. She has to attach the clothes peg to the matching word on the wheel. It took some cutting pasting to put it together, but if you’d like to make your own you can download the pages...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool for ED - Fall 2011 (age 3 1/2) / Montessori (general info)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 3, 2012
While the other kids are working on their things, ED has lots of preschool activities in her workboxes. Here are a few things she’s done this past week or so: We played memory using -at words. We are going through “My -at book.” ED says the initial sound and then I help her smash the sounds together. This is definitely an activity we do together as she is not reading...
Freebies / Math General Posts / Math--Multiplication
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 31, 2012
DD is just now learning to skip count by 3s. I made a unicorn and dragon themed game to help her practice. The game is pretty straight forward. Each player takes a turn drawing cards from the file until they get a dragon (STOP!) card. The player then sorts her cards and places them in skip counting order while the other player is drawing cards. The object is to be...
History: American History / History: American West Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 30, 2012
As I mentioned last week, this semester we are studying the American West. We picked up where we left off last semester when we talked about Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett. (To the left is Davy Crockett’s birthplace cabin in Tennessee which we visited last Thanksgiving.) We talked about the Ohio Valley settlement and how as settlers made their way west they used the rivers for transportation. We learned a...
A few days ago our first aid topic was on snake, spider and tick bites. First we went over the venomous snakes in our area and then went over some other venomous snakes they might encounter in America. Then we went over some of the basic first aid measures you should take if bitten by a venomous snakes. In the picture they are trying to take off my ring. We...
Fire Safety We were quite overdue for a review of some basic fire safety rules. Even though we’ve lived here for a year and a half, we hadn’t made a family meeting spot outside in case of emergency. Nor had we gone over in detail how the kids can escape from their room in case of emergency. We talked about what to do if your clothes or hair catches fire....
Not out of the house, we’re here to stay for a while yet… but the Homeschool Den blog will be moving. A couple of months ago one of the editors of Parents contacted me and asked if I would like to come under the Parents umbrella as one of their bloggers. I was honored and thrilled to join such a great team of people. So in just a couple of...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool for ED - Fall 2011 (age 3 1/2) / Language Arts - Grammar Worksheets
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 23, 2012
The girls got a new game for Christmas called A to Z, Jr by Discovery Toys. What a great game! The game itself is the perfect age for DD and LD (ages 6 and 8). It’s similar to the game Scattergories. Each person rolls the die and picks up a card. Then he/she has to name as many objects as they can for the category they rolled. Categories might include:...
If you are doing art appreciation, you might be interested in going on a virtual tour of the Sistine Chapel. This website was absolutely gorgeous and well worth a look at Michelangelo’s magnificent work: http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/sistina_vr/index.htmlYou can scroll in and out and move the cursor around to see different parts of the room… not just the famous portions like The Creation of Adam below (photo from Wikimedia Commons). If you are...
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.
