Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Before the weather becomes unbearably hot, I’ve beentrying to take the kids out a bit. We had an especiallyintense homeschooling day on Monday so I felt great aboutgetting out the next day. On Tuesday I took the kidshiking at Standley Chasm. The hike is gorgeous. The “fern”type plants you see are called cycads and have been aroundfor millions of years. They survive here in the Outbackin the cooler gaps and...
Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 20, 2009 · Last modified August 12, 2020
Free Homeschool Planner (for daily/weekly planning) And, if you are looking for some printables to create your own Homeschool Planner, you might want to check out our free Homeschool Planner. This unique homeschool planning packet is currently FREE to download! It is nearly 100 pages! Not only does this packet include daily and weekly planning pages, checklists and record keeping pages, but it also includes various homeschool journaling pages… think...
Science: Natural Disasters Unit and Activities
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 20, 2009 · Last modified February 17, 2018
Our last experiment (demonstration perhaps is a better word) was on plate movements. We looked at a map of the world’s plates, then made our own out of clay. On each plate was a continent (raised) and ocean (lower parts). We talked about how plates move around. Under each plate we put some magma (corn syrup and red food dye). When the plates are moving nothing happens to the magma (picture 1) Sometimes plates...
Science: Natural Disasters Unit and Activities
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 20, 2009
Here’s the cover of LD’s Natural DisasterBook. His book is over 30 pages long!
Science: Natural Disasters Unit and Activities
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 20, 2009 · Last modified April 19, 2020
We’ve done a huge unit on natural disasters this term. LD has been asking and asking when we could finally finish up the lapbook (which we actually put together with a comb binder). I got things ready and figured we spend the week putting things together. LD decided he wanted to do it ALL on Monday. He barely even let me get a quick lunch together. He spent close to...
Science: Natural Disasters Unit and Activities
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 20, 2009
Here are some of the pages from LD’s book. The natural disaster picture cards are available atwww.currclick.com for $2.00 US. We used some of the lapbook materials fromhttp://www.homeschoolshare.com/volcanoes.php andhttp://www.homeschoolshare.com/earthquakes.php
Science: Natural Disasters Unit and Activities
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 20, 2009
The cute exploding volcano was fromhttp://printables.scholastic.com/printables/detail/?id=31815 All in all, LD learned a lot this term. He sure isproud of the final product! I was amazed at theenergy and focus he had to put everythingtogether. He’s been bringing it everywherewe go (including to Standley Chasm!) justin case there was someone there who mightwant to look at it.
We finally put together DD’s flower book. This is a bunchof activities that we put together in a booklet using acomb binder. Activities came from http://www.play2learnprintables.com/Theme%20Page.htmhttp://www.childcareland.com/free.htmlandhttp://kidssoup.com/ (and perhaps one more, but I can’t remember off the topof my head)
The cute flower counting clothes pin cards were fromhttp://www.play2learnprintables.com/flowers.htm For her booklet, I made a lot of pocket pages by staplingtwo pages together.
We have a number of different ways we approach languagearts. LD is a pretty good reader, so he’s had “independentreading” time each day for the past four or five months. Hechooses a book to read and reads quietly on his own. Welet him choose whatever he wants (not even offering suggestionsor comments about how easy/hard a book is). We also don’t ask him anything about his reading except perhapswhat did...
Today after ED’s dance class we went to our local culturalprecinct (with various museums). The kids really enjoyedthe new airline exhibit and especially liked going into theairplane and watching a bit of the video on how camelscame to be in the Outback. Camels were brought overby Afghan trainers for use in the desert here. Now thereare lots of wild camels and interestingly enough, camelsare exported to the Middle East because...
The kids always enjoy going into the little science museum.Each time they seem to find something else that piquestheir interest. The first picture is of a dingo, a feral cat eating a galaand a perrente. The second picture is a skeleton of one of the world’s largestducks. The fossils were uncovered north of here. The last two are of various snakes, birds and mammalscommon to Australia. I’ve had it in...
Here’s a picture of a bull ant that was on displayat the science museum (see the story aboutDD getting bit by these in the post below). Thisant is over an inch long! Here are some of the other displays — skeletons,mammals, snakes and lizards.
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.
