Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
We had the privilege of reviewing a math card game called Speed! Oh boy is it fantastic! I would have to give it 5 stars for sure. I always try to include as many hands-on activities as possible in our homeschooling. DD still has a lot of math games, but I’ve been less creative with LD lately as he is working hard on reinforcing his basic multiplication and division skills....
I finished replacing most of the links I lost and have my page up and running again with the Blogs I Enjoy and Visit, Resources I Find Helpful. If you’re interested you can now visit that page again. I color coded it as follows: Homeschool Blogs I Enjoy is the first section in pink. Next is Useful Homeschool Resources in light blue with the following subsections: Great resources and printables...
Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 17, 2011
I came across a number of free Thanksgiving activity packs and thought I’d share those for anyone who might be interested in the next week or so: Thanksgiving Activity Pack from Itsy Bitsy Learners Thanksgiving Fun Book from The Simple Homeschool If you like this pack, you might want to pop over to The Simple Homeschool and register for their newsletter. From Dec. 1-12 they will be giving away...
As I’ve been trying to find links and repair the “blogs I enjoy” page, I came across a clock game I used to have LD play all the time online. Now DD is learning time to 5 minute intervals and I’m going to have her play Stop the Clock for math time for a while. She has to drag the digital time to the correct analog clock and do all...
Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Preschool for ED - Fall 2011 (age 3 1/2)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 15, 2011 · Last modified February 21, 2016
Back a couple of years ago Honey over at Sunflower Schoolhouse made a collection of clothes peg activities. I brought out this alphabet matching activity for ED last week. The plain letter matching was a bit too easy for her. Here’s the link to the Clothes Peg Alphabet, volume 1 (lower case letters) (the link no longer works, sorry!) that you see in this first picture. Honey also made other...
This evening I wanted to go to one of my links in the “Blogs/Websites I Enjoy” section… I’ve been saving my favorite sites for my own reference for several years… and 3/4 of my links are gone. Ugh! Even the cached version of the page doesn’t have any of the links so it must have happened some time ago. Sigh… I’ve reconstructed some of it so far, but it’ll take...
History: American History / History: This is the United States-Unit Study (grade 1)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 13, 2011
This past week the kids all came down with colds. As a consequence we did a lot of reading aloud and a bit less of the hands-on type stuff. We’ve been studying Appalachian music and decided to study some of the early frontiersmen in more depth. We spent a lot of time reading about Daniel Boone (one of the first to cross the Appalachian Mountains and one of the men...
I mentioned this before, but these multiplication word problems are worth another mention. We’ve been doing three each day at the beginning of math time for LD (age 8). 1. If 1 dress can be madefrom 6 yards of calico, how many yards will it take tomake 2 dresses? Solution. — For 2 dresses itwill take 2 times 6 yards, which are 12yards. 2. Mary has...
To go along with the build-a-sentence pack I made, I put together some free writing prompts. I’ll share it here in case some of you find it helpful for your emergent writers. It is 18 pages.Click here for the Free-Writing Prompts Pack
Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Preschool for ED - Fall 2011 (age 3 1/2)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 8, 2011
ED and I always get up an hour or two before the others. We cuddle up in front of the fire first thing and read books. We often do a craft to go along with it. I loved this picture because Crystal, the kitten, was so hands-on with this activity!! We’ve also been playing lots of games together in the morning; Uno is her current favorite (though we usually play...
Freebies / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 7, 2011 · Last modified March 7, 2016
Over the weekend, I made a set of Build_A_Sentence-Creative-Writing-Pack for my first-grader. Build_A_Sentence Creative Writing Activity Here are my plans for them: The first couple of pages are filled with ideas. She’ll go through and create sentences (silly or not) to write in her journal. Next we’ll work together to brainstorm ideas for some of the other themed sheets. I made about twenty different themed sheets with topics such as friendship, aliens,...
In collection (our morning group time) we talked about building super sentences. I used some materials I got from the Teacher Filebox (a subscription site that gives you access to most of the Evan Moor books from writing and reading to science and history). This was a great activity for DD and good review for LD (ages 6 and 8). First we looked at a simple sentence. The frog hopped.Then...
We had such a great homeschooling day on Monday. I was skeptical we’d get into the groove since we had just had my niece and nephew with us for four days. I brought in some spooky schooling, though and we had a terrific day! I went out and bought some dry ice and we did a number of experiments. You can see suggestions from Steve Spangler science and a couple...
Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 31, 2011
I’ve been itching to do a posting about our general homeschool schedule/day. What things we cover aside from the units I so often post about. Reading: Both DD and LD are good readers now. DD is reading easier chapter books while LD is on longer chapter books now. They both get up in the morning and read while eating breakfast. I always sprinkle our dining room room table with books...
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.
