Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
We learned about the eight planets in our Solar System. While the kids painted with watercolors, I sang this song from the Smithsonian, National Air and Space Museum Website. It’s called “Family of the Sun” and has one verse describing each of the eight planets (plus Pluto, the dwarf planet). It’s sung to the Farmer in the Dell: Here’s the first two verses and the chorus:1)Mercury is hotand Mercury is...
Science / Science: Earth Science Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 6, 2010 · Last modified February 17, 2018
I thought this was such a great idea for talking about our location, size and placement in the universe. It’d even be great for a study of maps. What a great lesson on where we live!! I had these all stacked together and went over these one by one asking them which galaxy we live in, what planet, what state, city, street etc. Then piled them one on top of...
A huge part of our homeschool routine continues to be spending time outdoors. I feel the kids need outdoor time — and send them out to play for an hour or so every afternoon. A lot of the time, I spend some of that time cutting wood and gathering kindling for the fire. (We use the fireplace once or twice a day. It really helps make our homeschool room cozy.)...
Science / Science: Earth Science Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 1, 2010 · Last modified December 24, 2015
Today we had our second earth science lesson. LD begged to do science again and I always love that enthusiasm! I’m still using Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding: A Science Curriculum for K-2 (affliliate link) as the basis for some of our lessons. *I read an excerpt about how the earth isn’t the only place with gravity. The moon and other planets have gravity too. We talked about how people...
Science / Science: Earth Science Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 29, 2010 · Last modified December 24, 2015
We have been making slow headway through our Ancient Rome unit, but we needed some new spice added into our homeschool days. We’re off to do a unit on earth science — studying concepts such as gravity, horizontal/vertical, directionality–N,S,E,W, and then moving on to the layers of the earth and the surface of the earth — the “ups and downs, ins and outs” of the landforms and waterforms and how...
History: Geography Activities / Montessori (general info)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 28, 2010 · Last modified April 1, 2016
We are heading off to Europe in our world music class this week and to get ready for that, I made a pin map of Europe. I’ll explain how I made mine in case someone else finds it useful. Step 1: I printed off a blank map of Europe from freeusandworldmaps.com. I also printed off the labeled Europe map from that same website as a control. I laminated these two...
Top Left is by ED, Middle Top is by DD, Top Right says (from bottom to top Time To et Me — Time to eat me — by DD). Bottom cards are by LD. This past week we’ve been singing this lovely Thanksgiving song together called “Thanksgiving Day” by L. Maria Child during our collection time: Over the river and through the wood To grandfather’s house we go; The horse...
Our internet has been down for a week. Ugh! Hope to be up and running in the next day or so. ED has had a horrible case of hives (from head to toe) and it turns out that she has Strep. We’re taking it easy and will just enjoy some nice weather outside since we can’t go anywhere until she’s not contagious.
Here’s a quick glance DD’s math work for the day (she just turned 5). I had her set up the numbers. She counted from 10 to 100 several times before I had her build double-digit numbers. I put a large handful of tiles in front of her and asked her to figure out whether there were an odd or even number of tiles (meanwhile, ED is making a tower!!). Also,...
Ages 2-6: Fall Theme / Ages 2-6: Toddler/Preschool Activities / Arts and Crafts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 15, 2010
We’ve been enjoying fall both inside and out! This post has actually gotten quite long, so I’ll post more of our outdoor adventures in a bit. Here are some of the fall-themed activities we’ve been up to inside. Here are some more activities I’ve had ready to pull out for ED when I’m working with the older kids. I just want to add that suddenly ED gets it! She’s easily...
Active Math Games / Math General Posts / Math--Addition
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 14, 2010
We try to play lots of games — and this one is worth a mention because it involves addition, subtraction and simple multiplication. It’s called Mmm Brains — so it also had great appeal to LD in particular! There’s a large selection of brains. Red brains are each 5 points. White brains are 1 point. There are 5 dice — with the numbers 1 through 5 in different colors (yellow,...
Since we had our first frost last week, I guess it’s okay to bring in some snowflake-themed math, right? Actually, I just stopped by a hobby store and saw the pretty snowflake ornaments. Since ED is STILL doing the spider counting, I thought it was about time to change it up for her as she ALWAYS comes running when I tell DD or LD that it’s math time. ED is...
Arts and Crafts / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 12, 2010
Quite a number of years ago, I taught history at a Quaker boarding school. At the beginning and end of the day, the students and staff gathered together for collection–10 minutes of silence together. At the end of that time, students or staff could share something with the community — music, a poem, etc. Now as you can imagine, 10 minutes of silence wouldn’t really hold for the kids, but...
I was looking for the alphabet and number cards with certain themes — fall leaves, snowflakes, and penguins. I stumbled across this terrific website that has all kinds of beautiful free printables: Communication 4 All.co.uk. Some of the early learning themes include space, pirates, minibeasts, animals, dinosaurs, under the sea, castles, India, months and seasons, the water cycle, and other themes. Just thought I’d share my discovery in case someone...
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.
