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I stretched out our early December activities and posted them over the past couple of weeks, but in reality we had a prolonged break for the holidays. I notice a number of comments and will try to get back to you soon. In the meantime, I want to rave about our amazing break. We had Grams and Gramps with us for three wonderful weeks. We did so much together. We...
Language Arts - Grammar Worksheets / Language Arts: Spelling
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 8, 2012 · Last modified February 19, 2017
I found a bingo card creator and have made several cards so LD can do some reviewing. This is the “long A” sound words, but you can create any word list you want. Here is the link to the bingo card creator website. I’m often raving about All About Spelling (affiliate link) and just wanted to include a picture of the tiles. Each lesson presents a new rule and before...
Recipes / Science / Science: Astronomy Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 4, 2012 · Last modified December 24, 2015
We had a lot of fun with this part of our astronomy unit.We talked about the phases of the moon. We started off with a lamp and held an egg in our hand. Then we moved the egg slowly around, watching how the shadow on the egg changed as the egg moved relative to the earth/our eyes. We all took turns slowly watching the shadows on the egg change (photo...
DD is learning a couple of new poems from a very old book we own from 1904 called the Value of Cheerfulness. We both like these poems and I thought I’d share them with you all. And since the poems are inspiring, why not some awe-inspiring art (left). I love, love, love Albert Bierstadt’s sweeping landscapes of the American West. They might not need me– Yet they might– I’ll let...
Language Arts - Grammar Worksheets / Language Arts: Spelling
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 2, 2012
We are doing lots of spelling review over the holidays just to keep things fresh. Today and tomorrow I’ll share some of the spelling things we’re doing to keep things fresh. Every now and then we pull out our spelling word sorts. LD goes over the rules he has learned for spelling. DD is just now becoming familiar with the rules. We use these to supplement the wonderful program we...
History: This is the United States-Unit Study (grade 1) / Trips We've Taken
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 30, 2011
A couple of weeks ago we lucky to be able to take a trip to see George Washington’s home, Mt. Vernon. It was a full day and the kids were asleep by the time we got home with the hours of walking we did (and the warm, cozy car ride home!) I hadn’t ever been there, but we were impressed with all there was to do there. The museum was...
Science / Science: Astronomy Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 29, 2011 · Last modified January 11, 2016
On this day we read about the Moon and did the lapbook components to add to our science notebook. What’s perfect about these lapbooks for us right now is the writing is not overwhelming and reinforces the main points we’ve gone over. We used the Moon — Speedy Lapbook by Homeschool Bits (which was quite inexpensive). Moon Craters: Our activity that day was to talk about why the surface of...
Science / Science: Astronomy Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 28, 2011 · Last modified January 11, 2016
The moon is very far away (225,622 miles to 252,088 miles depending on its position in its elliptical orbit around the Earth). NASA had to be very careful about the calculations they made to send someone to the moon especially since the moon is a moving target. In this activity, the kids are trying to hit the moon (a nut suspended on a string) that is swinging back and forth....
Since we are taking a couple of weeks off, I have some posts scheduled to post automatically. I’ll be sharing more pictures of our astronomy unit on Wednesday and then over the course of the next week or so. Today, though I wanted to come on and wish you all Happy Holidays and a very Happy New Year. Each evening at dinner, our family takes a few moments in silence...
This is by far my favorite craft we did this year! You glue toothpicks onto a star (cut out from cardboard or poster board). Then you spray paint it with gold paint and glue a toilet-paper roll on the back. Easy and quite beautiful! DD loved the cardinal art lesson from Art Projects for Kids. Below the kids made a few ornaments for the tree this year: little reindeers, a...
Lapbooks / Science / Science: Astronomy Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 20, 2011 · Last modified December 24, 2015
We seem to talk about the planets about once a year, don’t we? This time we did a little activity that showed the four inner, rocky planets, the asteroid belt and the four outer planets, the gas giants. In this picture you can see that the asteroid belt has two layers as well! We did the inner and out planets speedy lapbook by homeschool bits (25cents) — and even ED...
Science / Science Experiments / Science: Astronomy Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 19, 2011 · Last modified December 24, 2015
The kids have been begging for some hands-on science experiments. I have a bigger unit planned, but since December and January will be a bit broken up as far as our schooling goes, I decided to delve into a short unit with lots of experiments based on one of Janice VanCleave’s books (202 Oozing, Bubbling, Dripping, Bouncing, Experiments) and lots of notebook/lapbook pages from Homeschool Bits. Here’s some of what...
Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Preschool for ED - Fall 2011 (age 3 1/2)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 16, 2011
I feel like I haven’t written a long post about ED’s preschool work in forever. That’s because she’s been such an integral part of all our latest activities. She did all the owl crafts in our forest unit, did the dissection of the owl pellet. She takes notes and writes out her letters when the kids are taking notes on their science activities. She gets her own lapbook pages and...
Ages 2-6: Bird Unit / Lapbooks / Science / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 14, 2011 · Last modified November 26, 2015
Often while I’m reading aloud (in this case we’re still reading Little House in the Big Woods) I have the kids working on other things. A few days ago I had them cut out the pieces of a quick owl lapbook (All Owls, a 50cent lapbook by homeschool bits). It had great tidbits of information, reinforcing all we had read last week. They put it together and were so excited...
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.
