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Kindergarten Math / Math General Posts / Math--Addition
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 10, 2009
I’m not sure this exactly qualifies as addition (it’s also logic, strategy and so forth), but LD got this award winning card game for his birthday and LOVES it. It is called Rat-a-tat-Cat The premise is that you have to get rid of your rats (the high cards like 7, 8, 9) and try to get only low cards. You can not look at your face down card unless you...
Ages 2-6: Toddler/Preschool Activities / Math General Posts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 10, 2009
To introduce the concept of symmetry to my preschoolerwe played the “copy me game.” (That’s what I called it.)First I put down an object and she had to put one in it’smirror image (I showed her how if I folded the paper overit would be right in that spot where the paper touchedon the other side.) Then she had to put down an objectand I had to copy her. We...
Ages 2-6: Apple Unit / Ages 2-6: Toddler/Preschool Activities
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 9, 2009
DD did a unit on apples these past couple of weeks. Hereare some of the things she did. First picture: The apple picking game — Each of us hadour own apple picking sheet from kidssoup.com. (You have to pay a yearly fee to join this site, but I’ve gotten a lot of great ideas from there.) We took turns rolling the dice and placing that many apples(round red magnets) onto...
DD, ED and I made apple muffins. They were AMAZINGLY good! (U.S. Measurements) INGREDIENTS: 2 cups unbleached flour3/4 cup sugar1 Tblsp b powder3/4 teaspoon baking soda1 tsp cinnamon1/4 tsp nutmeg1/4 tsp ground allspice1/4 tsp ground cloves (I didn’t have any so used pumpkin pie spice)1/4 tsp salt1/2 cup walnuts (I didn’t have any walnuts or pecans so just added an extra 1/2 cup of apples)2 large eggs4 Tblsp unsalted, melted...
Ages 2-6: Apple Unit / Ages 2-6: Toddler/Preschool Activities
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 9, 2009
Game — After coloring the pig and apples we played pinthe apple into the pigs mouth. We used some other appleswe had on hand because we played with friends.http://www.dltk-kids.com/crafts/luau/mpinapple.html Apple Counting — I have lots of number sheets on hand (seethe second picture) for the kids to do stamping. This timeI gave her a bit of red paint to make fingerprint appleson her sheet. I asked if she wanted to...
Ages 2-6: Apple Unit / Ages 2-6: Toddler/Preschool Activities
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 9, 2009
We’ve never melted crayons before and I read somewherethat someone had melted the crayons and then used cookiecutters to cut them into shapes. “Wow,” I thought, “Ican use those cute fall cookie cutters we have.” Well, we used very cheap crayons (we had boxes left overfrom a large function) and it looked plain weird. Thewax separated out and it looked muddy orangish-brown. I just left the pan to cool. Only...
Ages 2-6: Apple Unit / Ages 2-6: Toddler/Preschool Activities
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 9, 2009
We talked about the life cycle of an apple (accordian bookfrom kidssoup) and then glued in a little A book we gotfrom http://www.homeschoolshare.com/alphabet_notebook.php We also did the Aa apple sorting game from homeschoolsharebut I didn’t take a picture of it. I recommend you check out the the (free) alphabet notebookat homeschoolshare if your preschooler is learning lettersthis year http://www.homeschoolshare.com/alphabet_notebook.php The last picture is called 100 apples. We did this activitytogether....
DD painted a big apple tree, Mom cut out holesfor the apples and they tried to throw the applesinto the holes.
Ages 2-6: Apple Unit / Ages 2-6: Toddler/Preschool Activities
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 9, 2009
Idea from http://kidssoup.com/ My toddler enjoyed doingher own tree. As you may have noticed from the past couple of picturesI save the lids from glass jars to use for glue or smallamounts of paint. It makes clean up easy as I just throwthe lid in the rubbish bin when we’re done.
Ages 2-6: Apple Unit / Ages 2-6: Toddler/Preschool Activities
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 9, 2009
Here are two final picture from our apple unit, again this isfrom kidssoup.com. Match the apple to the right wordfamily tree. There was also a cute matching activity for sight words —match the worm to the apple. We only used a few of thesecards, but can pull it out later when it’s appropriate.
Science: Natural Disasters Unit and Activities
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 9, 2009 · Last modified May 14, 2016
Our tornado in a bottle didn’t turn out as well as the ones online did, but we did get it to work. (It didn’t work when we used food dye, oil and water. everything turned red.) LD wanted to “do his own experiment” with the oil and food dye (which he noticed formed bubbles in the oil). He put the oil and dye on a leaf, broke the bubbles...
Science: Natural Disasters Unit and Activities
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 8, 2009 · Last modified September 17, 2020
We have been doing a unit on natural disasters. We have yet to put our lapbook together, but I’ll share some of the activities we did. (Still to come in the next couple of days is the tornado activity.) Update: We have a new Natural Disasters Packet. See you again soon here or Homeschool Den Facebook page. Don’t forget to Subscribe to our Homeschool Den Newsletter! ~Liesl You can find out more about...
Science: Natural Disasters Unit and Activities
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 8, 2009 · Last modified May 14, 2016
The majority of damage from hurricanes comes from heavy winds. We watched a youtube video about hurricanes where the wind blew the roof off of a house. Then we did our own activity. We built a house out of index cards and then tested their strength with level one winds (one straw). Seeing that the house blew down, we reinforced it (with more tape). It then withstood the level one...
Science: Natural Disasters Unit and Activities
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 8, 2009 · Last modified March 19, 2018
Our next activity was to recreate a tsunami. In a flat pan, the kids built up a sandy beach (sand, corn flour) and built little houses. Then they added water and created an earthquake. It didn’t work when the kids hit the table with the bat, but when the table was given a good shake the tsunami hit fill force! We looked...
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.
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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.
