Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Books: Children's Literature / Summer Activities
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 16, 2014 · Last modified January 1, 2016
I was recently asked if we planned to homeschool throughout the summer. We often start back to school a bit earlier in August than our public school friends, but our family has decided that we need most of the summer off… at least from our more formal approach to school. For one thing, the majority of the kids’ friends have “off” during the summer, so we set up more playdates...
Homeschool: Planning and Preparation
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 9, 2014 · Last modified June 18, 2020
The end of the school year is coming up quickly. I usually take some time to reflect how the year went for our family. We’ll talk about some of the things we covered this year… everything from really diving into the Writing Workshop for the first time to our huge units on India, Gandhi, the Civil Rights Movement and China… plus our science units on Simple Machines, Weather, Water… our adventures...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 5, 2014 · Last modified September 17, 2018
While we were studying the Yuan Dynasty, we spent quite a bit of time learning about Marco Polo, his travels and his experience in Kublai Khan’s court. To wrap up the unit, the kids tilled out these notebook pages to add to their history notebook. The kids really enjoyed learning about Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan and the adventures of Marco Polo. We didn’t do any projects with this unit, but...
Freebies / History: China Unit / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 2, 2014 · Last modified February 20, 2017
Most every kid has heard of Genghis Khan, right? Boy, do we have some good books and videos for you! Plus you can download our free notebook pages about Genghis Khan and Kublai Khan! If you are looking for an engaging unit to do with your kids this summer — this could be it! My kids LOVED this portion of our China unit. We skipped forward almost 1,000 years (from 200AD...
Our family loves star gazing and I always try to find out when the next meteor showers pass by. Tonight there is a brand new meteor shower that may light up the night sky. They are called the Camelopardalids. Scientists aren’t sure exactly how many shooting stars we’ll see, but they could shower down at a rate of 1-per minute. If the showers happen they should be visible in...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Random Thoughts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 11, 2014 · Last modified March 7, 2016
This year Mother’s Day is officially one hundred years old in the U.S. On May 8, 1914 Congress passed a law to officially celebrate Mother’s day on the second Sunday in May. Facts About Moms (in the U.S.) There are more than 85 million mothers of all ages in the United States. According to the Pew Research Institute, fewer Moms are married than fifty years ago Of all women age...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 9, 2014 · Last modified May 18, 2015
The past couple of weeks have flown by. I wanted to write up a quick post to mention some of the things that are going well for us at the moment. It’s hard to believe that we’ll be wrapping up another school year in four or five weeks! Here’s what we’ve been up to the past few weeks: Language Arts: In order to fulfill the requirements of our state, the...
History: China Unit / History: World Religions / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 1, 2014 · Last modified February 17, 2016
Have you heard of these sayings? A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Do not do to others what you do not want others to do to you. Respect yourself and others will respect you. Judge others by what you know of yourself. Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. It does not matter how slowly you go...
History: China Unit / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 29, 2014 · Last modified December 29, 2014
Today was the type of day when everything pulled together beautifully! I set up paper and paints on the kitchen table and had all our books assembled to talk about Chinese brush painting, read from our novel and read from our Chinese history book. The kids ate it all up! We started with a lovely picture book called Brush of the Gods.It was a legend from about 762AD about a...
Holiday: Easter / Homeschool Den / Math General Posts / Math--Division / Math--Multiplication
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 15, 2014 · Last modified March 26, 2018
Although a lot of the schools around us are having spring break, we have a family vacation coming up in another month so we’re homeschooling this week. Over the weekend, I made some multiplication and division pages for DD and LD to practice their math facts. You can download this free by clicking on the link below. There are 3 pages. Free Easter Themed – Multiplication and Division LD is...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Preschool at Home / Ages 2-6: Preschool for ED - Fall 2011 (age 3 1/2) / History: Geography Activities / Homeschool Den / Montessori (general info)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 8, 2014 · Last modified March 18, 2018
There are so many fun things you can do with your preschooler (or elementary kids) to help them gain an understanding of the geography of our amazing world! You can make all kinds of maps to enhance your preschooler’s knowledge of the world. Over the years we have made maps… with sand, dirt and grass seed like our Nile River Valley Out of clay, like our Ancient Greece (and Mediterranean...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 1, 2014 · Last modified September 5, 2022
When we delve into a new unit, I search high and low for a wide variety of books. Not only do I want non-fiction books, but I also want books that bring the topic alive… and stories and novels are a wonderful way to do that. This is a long (and probably incomplete!) list of the books we’ve used and are using in our China unit. We’ve read a number...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 31, 2014 · Last modified March 16, 2023
We started a big unit on China a number weeks ago. This is the first in a whole number of posts & printables from our unit on China. One of the first things we did was to cover some of basic facts about China: where it is located, its population, capital, president, currency and things like that. This is the page I made for the kids. I also included the...
Ages 2-6: Pete the Cat Unit / Freebies / Kindergarten Math / Math General Posts / Math--Addition
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 24, 2014 · Last modified May 11, 2023
If you are doing a Pete the Cat Unit, your kids might enjoy these FREE Addition Subtraction Worksheets inspired by Pete the Cat! My daughter borrowed several Pete the Cat books (affiliate link) from the library last week. She’s been reading them over and over, so I made her a couple of math practice pages with a Pete the Cat type theme! She quickly used up those pages and I...
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.
