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Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 23, 2013 · Last modified November 17, 2015
We’ve been back to school for about a month, I wanted to share how homeschool life is going. I love the posts where other homeschoolers share what they aspire to each day — and that’s what this post is. Not that everything on the list get checked off, but if we were to have an ideal day it might look something like this (this is the list that floats around...
Homeschool Den / Kindergarten / Language Arts: Writing / Science / Science: Human Body Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 17, 2013 · Last modified September 5, 2017
Over the summer, I stumbled across the Center for Disease Control’s Science Ambassador Program. What a great find! It has a series of lessons (maybe mini-unit would be a better term for them) on all kinds of various topics with challenging activities for students to learn about. Topics include — autism, birth defect, Hantavirus, HIV/Aids… and many more. What I like about their lessons is that they require the students...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Freebies / Homeschool Den / Kindergarten / Language Arts: Reading / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published July 16, 2013 · Last modified March 7, 2016
Earlier this summer ED switched back to the Bob Book series for a little while and I made some worksheets to go along with them. She really liked working on these. I hope someone else finds them useful. As always, they are free to download. If you’d like to share or pin, go ahead just link back to my original post. Thanks! If you use them I’d love to hear...
Arts and Crafts / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 30, 2013 · Last modified April 12, 2015
A wonderful way to recycle, inspire and create is to save your clean trash. Set that out along with feathers, googly eyes, glue, pipe cleaners and other assorted things to see what you child can come up with. Egg cartons were a huge hit with the girls last week. While I decorated a tissue box… the girls set to work on their own cute puppets (no input from me)! Our...
Freebies / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 21, 2013
Since I am wrapping up the school year, I thought I would go through and share some of the most popular posts from this school year. Most of them had to do with some of the free materials I made, but two of them had to do with family life in general–3-The Most Stressful Number of Kids and the post I wrote just after our beloved Vovo, hubby’s grandmother, died — The...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Math: Preschool Math / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 17, 2013 · Last modified January 28, 2018
Each year at the end of the year, I put together a post that looks back at our school year. ED has had a great year. She was 4 this year and turned 5 this spring. We homeschool together… so ED participates with my older two kids in all their activities. Some of these units (like the 5 senses) were mainly for ED, others were mainly for the older kids, but...
Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 31, 2013 · Last modified March 26, 2016
The weather feels like summer and we had a week away, but we actually haven’t quite brought our school year to a close. We have a couple of weeks left partly because we haven’t done our end-of-year testing yet. As part of the requirements for our state, the kids have to take a national exam (there are several to choose from). The tests are graded elsewhere, we receive the results...
Homeschool Den / Must Read / Trips We've Taken
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 29, 2013 · Last modified March 26, 2016
As you probably gather from yesterday’s post 10 Reasons Why Time Off is Important, our family was on holiday last week at the beach. There are so many things to do at the Outer Banks (Southern Shores/Kitty Hawk/Nags Head area), I thought I would share some of the things our family has done there. I know it’s a popular family destination. Here are some things your family might enjoy in...
Homeschool Den / Must Read / sports / Trips We've Taken
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 1, 2013 · Last modified March 16, 2016
One of the fabulous things about being homeschoolers is that we can travel when it suits us. We often homeschool when other kids are not in school (for example, we often start back to school in early August and don’t take the same breaks, holidays or snow days that other kids in traditional schools take). Then, when the opportunity arises we head off for a family holiday. We actually got...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 30, 2012
Wow, it’s the end of 2012… a great time to reflect on the year we’ve had. Here are some of the highlights from this year: our favorite homeschool activities: It’s hard to choose just two, but I guess these are the ones that really stand out for me at the moment… the Black Plague simulation we did. None of us ever made it to our destination!! The kids really loved...
Health / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Must Read / sports
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 18, 2012
You’ve bought the supplies, paid the dues, your child starts an activity… only to announce not long after that he doesn’t want to participate. The shoes are too tight, the coach is too mean, the drills are ‘boring,’ it’s just “not fun.” Yes, extracurricular activities can be enriching and rewarding, but sometimes your child wants to quit not long after he’s begun. What’s a parent to do? We’ve handled this...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Organizing and Cleaning / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Must Read / Workboxes
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 24, 2012 · Last modified March 14, 2019
I’ve spent a lot of time reorganizing our homeschool room this year. I know lots of other homeschoolers are sharing pictures of their learning spaces in the not-back-to-school blog hop. I thought I’d share some photos of our homeschool room as well. In the picture below you see our 3-ring notebooks, the craft table, LD’s writing desk, a bookshelf and DD’s desk (back by the window). A lot of our...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Preschool at Home / Homeschool Den / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 7, 2012 · Last modified March 9, 2016
Last week we started back to school, but I thought I’d spend a few minutes sharing our overall goals this for this next semester. I’ll start off sharing our plans for ED’s preschool. Early next week I’ll share the plans for DD (age 6) and LD (almost 9). Math This year I decided to go with Right Start Math Level A for ED (age 4). I did this curriculum with...
Homeschool Den / Math General Posts / Math--Geometry / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 2, 2012
This week we’ve started easing back into school. We’re not doing all subjects as we still have lots of other things going on (play dates, doctor’s appointments for their wellness checkups, trips with friends, activities, etc.), but we did start up with math and reading. In math we’re starting the year with a unit on geometry. Geometry Mindmap: I read a book this summer that really recommends using mind maps...
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.
