Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
This week our reading related to Thanksgiving (manyof my read alouds were Thanksgiving books) and LDread a number of Thanksgiving stories and readers. We’ve been busy with all the kids’ outside activities: Kindergym, Tues mornings — mostly for ED but LD’sfriend stays home from school, so he gets to hang outwith his friend all morning. We go early because I helpset up each week, hauling all the mats and equipmentout...
Peggy Kaye’s books have been a WONDERFUL additionto our homeschooling curriculum. LD is not thrilled aboutwriting, but using ideas like this one from Peggy Kaye’sbooks have made a HUGE difference to the enjoymentand pleasure he gets out of writing. I got this ideafrom Games for Writing and LD is tickled by the sillysentences that he’s had to write like this one: A robot sang a song in the White House...
I just posted this in one of my yahoo groups. Just thought it might be of use to someone else (though I’ve mentioned many of these websites already!) She was asking for skip counting websites and games. This is what I wrote: Last week I came across a wonderful resource. It’s long list of interactive websites for playing math games online. It’s at http://www.internet4classrooms.com/skills_1st_math_new.htm I haven’t used the Internet very...
LD has decided he loves the last piece inhis piano book. He’s been working very hard tolearn it — it’s amazing what self-motivationdoes. He’s really improving a lot sincehe first started a couple months ago. Today we did crayon melts. The kids werevery excited both in shaving the crayons in thesharpeners (the one on the box worked well,but LD used a hand pencil sharpener he had).They just loved the results.
We pulled out the continent pin-map and the countingbeads this week. DD remembered the Continent songwith no trouble.
Last Thursday we went to the Desert Park.That’s our equivalent of a zoo except that ithas lizards, snakes, kangaroo, emu and anassortment of other desert-dwelling marsupials(mala, Western quoll, bilbies, wallabies, andso forth). It’s always enjoyable for the kids(and for me!)
Where We Used to Live (Australia posts)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 4, 2009 · Last modified March 29, 2016
The kids always like the Thorny Devil (top picture).
I don’t usually focus on the flowers, but they were in bloomand quite pretty last week. Here are a few pictures — Ialways think they look lovely against the red sands.
I put out a piece of contact paper (sticky side up) withsome crinkled pieces of tissue paper. I thought ED wouldhave fun making some art. There happened to be a coupleof craft match sticks and cut up straws in the bowl. WhenI turned around, ED was placing them vertically on thepaper! I was impressed at her three-dimensional picture. A little while later she had just as much fun destroyingher masterpiece.
The other night ED was sitting next to us on the couch. She signed, “The frog is hurt.” A little confused I asked her “The froggy is hurt?” She nodded her head and pointed to a little frog tattoo she had on her foot… she had scratched much of the tattoo off. The best part about all this was that ED started to laugh hard when she pointed at tattered...
Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc) / Math General Posts / Math--Addition
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 1, 2009
I came across this website this evening that lists some simple, but cute computer math games appropriate for first graders. I’m not that great about having LD use the computer for these kinds of things, but I think I’ll make a more concerted effort to make games like these available for him. I think he’d enjoy them. http://www.internet4classrooms.com/skills_1st_math_new.htm Here are some examples of games listed at this website: 1) Your...
Ages 2-6: Toddler/Preschool Activities / Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 1, 2009
I raved about Honey’s website a couple of days ago, but wanted to mention a couple of pages I found particularly useful that I don’t think I mentioned before. She had a very useful post about the websites she likes that have activities for toddlers: http://sunflowerschoolhouse.com/toddler-activities/ Also, I printed these brick building cards (Lego projects) and cut them so that there were two cards on each piece of paper. The...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 30, 2009 · Last modified October 23, 2018
The day before Halloween we made lanterns on glass baby food jars and tissue papers. We placed small candles inside and they looked quite cute. You might want to check out some of our other Halloween Posts: Halloween: Freebies (Math, Writing), Homemade Candy Corn Recipe and More!! Free Letter W Printables Halloween Party Games! Free Printable: Homemade Candy CornRecipe: When we lived in Australia (when the kids were little), we...
Aside from the crafts and trips out and about, I wantedto share some of the things we’ve been doing these days athome. Except for ED’s activities, these activities allappeared in their workboxes this past week. I just loveworkboxes because it lets them choose things when theyhave an interest. They get very excited by some of thethings I put out for them and we’ll often get wrapped upin activities for an...
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.
