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Science / Science: Earth Science Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 8, 2011 · Last modified July 19, 2018
We were still talking about plate tectonics on Friday. We talked about how scientists theorize that the continents were once connected as one giant super-continent, Pangaea. I cut out South America and Africa and asked them to fit them together as best the could. When they didn’t fit together perfectly I asked the kids why the continents wouldn’t match perfectly after 250 million years? We talked about erosion and the...
Science / Science: Earth Science Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 2, 2011 · Last modified July 19, 2018
Here’s our hands-on studies of tectonic plate movements, 2nd grade style. We used: a tray with a thin layer of chilled jello (jelly) graham crackers for the earth’s crustal plates colored icing (green-continents and blue-oceans) You can see LD putting the continent and ocean onto his plate (ie. graham cracker). We read about the plates and tectonic plate movement and looked carefully at this map. We talked about how when...
This is another Mom-Story I’d like to share with my kids/family/friends (well for the kids, maybe I’ll share this when they’re MUUuuuuch older!). It’s a story about a scary drawing, potential kidnapping (and worse), and the police! Bear with me as I set the scene–it takes a few minutes before I get to the story itself. When I was at university, I studied anthropology. I started out being interested in...
Science / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats / Science: Vertebrates - Invertebrates
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 15, 2010
Here are the bird cards I made (link to download is on the sidebar). There are smaller photos as well, but I wound up not using them (oh well), but they do tell you where these birds are located. Anyway, I chose these particular birds because I selected some short (3 to 8 minute long) videos from you-tube that I chose to show the kids. Today after sorting the five...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Montessori (general info) / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 3, 2010
I don’t think I ever talked about the kids’ sorting of the rainforest animals. We have two packs of 3-part cards — the Amazon and the African rainforest animals. Both sets of cards are from the Montessori Print Shop for less than $2US each. As always, we started with our continent song and the general pin map of the 7 continents (not shown in the photos here). Then we looked...
We’ve been having lots of play-dates and time at the poolwith friends who are on school holidays. We’ve beenpretty low-key here at home. LD has worked a bit on hishand-writing. We’ve played a few math games, done mazes,dot-to-dots and things like that, but we’re still on breakfrom the big units (and I continue to plan and prep behindthe scenes). Here are a few snapshots lately: 1) The kids both put...
We spend a fair bit of time learning about geography. A lotof it is incidental because we have a world map hanging on thewall behind the dining room table. LD likes to test us, “whereis South Africa? Where is Brazil?” But we also have a fewgeography activities that show up in the workboxes everycouple of weeks. Pictured below is DD (age 3) doing a continent push pin map.I printed it...
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.
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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.
