Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Where We Used to Live (Australia posts)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 1, 2010 · Last modified May 18, 2015
Our time has been taken up more and more by our move away from central Australia. We are both excited to move on and sad to leave this beautiful area. We’ve been here 12+ years and have amazing friends and memories. It has been overwhelming the number of things we need to do to be ready to pack up and leave, so expect fewer and fewer posts. Just another 6...
Where We Used to Live (Australia posts)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 1, 2010 · Last modified May 18, 2015
The other day as I pulled away from the house, a huntsman spider crawled up over my shoulder… luckily it was on the OTHER side of the glass, but it really startled me. Let me tell you, when you see that 3 1/2 inch (8 cm) spider out of the corner of your eye, you flinch! This huntsman was hanging out on our garbage can today. Perhaps it’s the same...
Where We Used to Live (Australia posts)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 1, 2010 · Last modified May 18, 2015
This stick bug was more than 10 inches/25 cm long! When LD poked at it, we nearly jumped out of our skin when it suddenly started flapping its wings!
Science / Science Experiments / Science: Rocks and Minerals
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 22, 2010
Over the weekend, LD pulled out his rocks and minerals kits that he got from Grandma and Grandpa for Christmas. I also had a rocks and minerals chart from Oriental Trading to add to the center (that he hadn’t seen before). We spent more than two hours learning about rocks today! I’ll share a bit more of what we did in the next post. After the experiments, the kids spent...
Science / Science Experiments / Science: Rocks and Minerals
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 22, 2010 · Last modified February 7, 2021
The first thing we did together was to sing the “Rock Song.” It was to the tune of Row, Row, Row Your Boat and talked about how sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic rocks are formed. Then he put the cards in the rocks and minerals chart. He really loved that and thought the chart/cards were “cool.” Don’t miss our FREE Rocks and Minerals Packet . We also have a Free Worksheet...
Science / Science Experiments / Science: Rocks and Minerals
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 22, 2010
These are cards from the teacherdesk.info. The packet was more than 60 pages long and I thought it was a good quality product (it was $4 US dollars). We used them a lot in our talks today.
Science / Science Experiments / Science: Rocks and Minerals
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 22, 2010 · Last modified July 19, 2018
For sedimentary rocks, we talked about how the rocks were formed by layers building up one a-top the other. Then we made our own sedimentary layers. We had different colors of sand (I added food dye of various colors to the sand and mixed it together the night before). We also collected dried up leaves and small pebbles to add to the layers. You might also be interested in these...
Science / Science Experiments / Science: Rocks and Minerals
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 22, 2010 · Last modified December 28, 2014
In talking about igneous rocks, we looked at the cards from teacherdesk.info and talked about how some lava cools quickly (like obsideon) and some cools slowly (like granite). Melting wax from a candle was like lava cooling quickly and after the wax had cooled for a few moments we felt how smooth it was and compared that to the obsideon rocks we have from the rock kit. You might also...
Science / Science Experiments / Science: Rocks and Minerals
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 22, 2010 · Last modified May 1, 2016
We talked about what a geologist does and brought out this “land recreation.” LD and DD took turns taking “core samples” from the earth with the straw. They could tell that it was made of different layers. Metamorphic rocks are made when pressure and heat change the rocks. The oven was our ‘heat and pressure source’ for creating these “metamorphic rocks. Then we took rock samples (below) and looked not...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 22, 2010 · Last modified January 18, 2016
This is an Animal Track and Animal Habitat Game that I brought out for the today. When DD saw the science center set up today, she said she wanted to do more rain forest stuff instead. We hadn’t yet played the animal tracks game (affiliate link) and this was perfect! Each player spun the spinner. Then they had to guess which animal habitat the animal lived in and had a...
Science / Science: Vertebrates - Invertebrates / Where We Used to Live (Australia posts)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 19, 2010
Last week LD was very excited about birds (wewere going over the vertebrate groups and talkedfirst for a week or so about reptiles, then for anotherfew days about birds.) He made a bird feeder and we bought bird seed tohang on our front fence. It took a while, but today wefinally had visits from the Port Lincoln (or Ringneck) Parrot.
LD and I hammered together this veryprimitive looking bird feeder. We wanted toattract the Honeyeaters (birds). He filled thecontainers with water, water and sugar, waterand honey, and water and squeezed orangejuice to see which one the birds were attractedto.
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Theme Time (age 2-4)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 19, 2010 · Last modified July 17, 2020
Today the theme time table was on bears. At breakfast we read Blueberries for Sal and Bearobics. Blueberries for Sal is such a sweet story. It’s a Caldecott Winner from 1948. I grew up canning blueberry jam (we had lots of blueberry bushes) so I always have a good talk about that with the kids when we read that book. I also really like Bearobics. It’s a rap, counting book,...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Theme Time (age 2-4)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 19, 2010 · Last modified July 17, 2020
ED played with the little panda bears all day! She even took them in the car on errands. We followed up the re-enactment of Goldilocks (post above) later in the day with a cute book called Beware of the Bears, which picks up when the bear family comes home. They follow Goldilocks to her house and wreak havoc there. DD cut out the parts (above) and made a moveable polar...
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.
