Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
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 Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Homeschool: Random Thoughts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 3, 2013 · Last modified May 16, 2016
I saw this question somewhere on the internet while I was on holiday a week or so ago and it really got me to thinking… what has taken me most by surprise in our homeschooling adventure? I knew “from the start” that we would homeschool. It was on our radar because my sister’s family homeschools their kids and my cousin homeschooled her three kids. It sounded like a good fit...
History: Africa Unit / History: American History / History: Slavery and the Civil War / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 30, 2013 · Last modified January 31, 2019
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and Slavery in America As many of you know, we have been studying Africa this year in our homeschool. As we finished up our studies of West Africa, we spent about a week learning about the Transatlantic Slave Trade and about slavery in general. My kids had not yet studied this in history. We read a number of books… most of them had an incredible impact on...
History: Africa Unit / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 22, 2013 · Last modified February 20, 2017
One of the lovely things about homeschooling is that we can reach out to our community — both near and far. The kids and I helped a bit here in our community by volunteering at the local food pantry during the fall. They bagged apples and passed them out to people who came to the bi-weekly food bank. This semester, we’re doing a service project that spins off from our...
History: Africa Unit / History: Geography Activities
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 17, 2013 · Last modified March 16, 2016
It has been quite a while since I talked about our African Unit. I think the last time I wrote, I shared the history pages I made about the Ghana and Mali Empires. We had also learned about some famous Africans such as Sundiata and Mansa Musa. The past couple of weeks, we’ve been learning more about contemporary Africa. We’ve been doing a lot of reading from Journey into Africa:...
Freebies / History: Africa Unit / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 28, 2013 · Last modified March 16, 2016
We have spent two weeks learning about the history of West Africa. The kids did a lot of different West African art projects and while they worked on those, I would read aloud to them. After the camel was introduced in the 7th century or so, West Africa began trading more and more with North Africa. West African gold, salt and slaves moved north, while goods, ideas and Islam came down...
History: Africa Unit / History: Geography Activities / Homeschool Den / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 27, 2013 · Last modified March 16, 2016
Once again, we brought out our pin maps as we learned about the countries of West Africa. We used the flags of Africa from Montessori Materials to create country pins for our pin map (African Flags-page 1; African Flags-page 2). You can download and print out the map from the African Learning Pack I made back in September. I used a plain cork board underneath the map. As we were talking about the trade between...
Arts and Crafts / History: Africa Unit / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 22, 2013 · Last modified March 16, 2016
This year we have been studying world cultures focusing primarily on Africa. We started out with some basic facts about Africa and then moving on to Egypt including a study of Ancient Egypt. From there we studied the Islam and its history. We learned about the spread of Islam and moved on to a study the countries of northern Africa. We looked at some of the beautiful examples of Moroccan...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Freebies / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Science / Science: Earth Science Unit / Science: Rocks and Minerals
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 14, 2013 · Last modified April 23, 2021
Here’s another freebie from our Rocks and Minerals Unit: Free Printable Montessori 3-Part Cards on Famous Rocks Around the World! If your students are studying Rocks and Minerals they might enjoy this activity about Famous Rocks Around the World! This set includes the Sphinx, Stonehenge, Mt. Rushmore, Uluru, Arches, the Rock of Gibraltar and others. Hope you find these helpful. 🙂 Have a great day! ~Liesl Famous Rocks Around the...
Freebies / Holiday: Valentine's Day / Homeschool Den / Math General Posts / Math--Multiplication / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 3, 2013 · Last modified February 8, 2019
Today, I thought I’d first share a couple of the games I made for the kids for Valentine’s Day since it’s quickly approaching. These games are free to download. 🙂 The first set are multiplication worksheets and game boards to practice the 4s and 6s times tables. **DD only started working on these today (Monday) and I saw there was an error on her paper. I corrected it and re-posted the...
Freebies / Homeschool Den / Language Arts - Grammar Worksheets / Language Arts: Spelling / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 17, 2013 · Last modified January 3, 2020
I made this spelling review sheet for the /er/ sound. We use All About Spelling Program (affiliate link) (which we love, love, love!) and this goes along with several of the lessons from books 2 and 3. Spelling has never come naturally to LD in particular, so he needs a bit more review from time to time. Feel free to download this for your child/students! Spelling: sound /er/ — er...
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...
History: Africa Unit / History: Ancient Egypt / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 12, 2012 · Last modified March 16, 2016
Every now and then I like to write up these posts. The first one I did was when the kids were 3 and 1 (and ED wasn’t born yet!)…I’ve done them periodically since then. This is a glimpse of what goes on when we’re actually home all day. It’s not a “typical” day because as homeschoolers each day is different than the day before–at least in our family. That’s what...
History: Africa Unit / History: Ancient Egypt / Homeschool Den / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 29, 2012 · Last modified January 10, 2015
Since we are studying Ancient Egypt, this story is especially timely. The kids and I had some really deep discussions about this and the actual destruction of the Buddha of Bamiyan back in 2001. Some radical Islamists view the pyramids as symbols of paganism that should be destroyed. In fact, a couple of weeks ago (Nov. 10, 2012), Murgan Salem al-Gohary, the leader of Egypt’s ultra-conservative Salafist party called for the “destruction...
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.
