Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
While on holiday it was time to think through our homeschooling plans for the next 5-7 weeks or so. I always have a running plan in my head, but sometimes it’s useful to put it down on paper, so to speak. As you will see, I am trying to include a lot more Newberry honor and medal winners now that DD is a bit older. I’ll continue to read lots...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 12, 2011
Homeschool Blogs I Enjoy In no particular order: The Forest Room Our Worldwide Classroom We Don’t Need No Education The Adventures of Bear Confessions of a Homeschooler Walking by the Way Our Country Road Satori Smiles Almost Unschoolers The Arrowood Zoo Educating April Joyful Learner Owlet Homeschool Escapade Little Blossoms Enchanted Homeschooling Mom Half-a-Hundred Acre Wood Musings of Me Eclectic Homeschooling Wildflowers and Marbles 2pequenostraviesos–2 Little Rascals Counting Coconuts Eclectic...
Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 26, 2010
I usually take opportunity over our December break to begin planning for the next semester. This last semester we learned a lot during our studies of Ancient Rome. We enjoyed watching bits of Spartacus and Ben Hur. LD and DD were entranced by the boat battles and amazing chariot race of Ben Hur! Now, as you obviously can tell by the clip art I’m planning for our next unit on...
Science / Science: Earth Science Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 29, 2010 · Last modified December 24, 2015
We have been making slow headway through our Ancient Rome unit, but we needed some new spice added into our homeschool days. We’re off to do a unit on earth science — studying concepts such as gravity, horizontal/vertical, directionality–N,S,E,W, and then moving on to the layers of the earth and the surface of the earth — the “ups and downs, ins and outs” of the landforms and waterforms and how...
Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Math General Posts / Workboxes
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 9, 2010
This post is a long time in coming; it’s taken forever to get this posted! I wanted to share some of the curriculum choices that are working well for our 7 year old this semester. MATH: These past five months or so, we have been using a math workbook for much of LD’s math practice. Only recently have started back on our beloved Right Start Math curriculum. It was written...
Arts and Crafts / History: Geography Activities / History: Japan Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 23, 2010 · Last modified April 1, 2016
The theme of our music class these next two or three weeks is Japan. Each week we sang the continent song together. This week, we pulled out a new kind of map, a Montessori flag map. We learned where Japan was located and placed the flags we knew on the map. Then everybody piled outside to do a scavenger hunt for Japanese flags. (from Japanese Flag printables) We then looked...
Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc) / Workboxes
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published July 17, 2010
We’ve pretty much resorted to ‘natural learning’ these past two months as we travel from state to state making our way to our new home. But in the meantime, I have been planning and preparing for the new school year to come. We use a smattering of curriculum resources which I distribute into workboxes and centers. While we do most workboxes, most days we don’t have a set orders to...
Nature / Outdoor Fun / Outdoor: Fossils / Science
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published July 8, 2010
A few days later while we were walking around Grams and Gramps’ neighborhood we saw an outcropping of rocks. Upon closer inspection, we saw that the ENTIRE rock section was covered with fossils. Most of the fossils and fossil bits are crinoids (ancient sea lilies). Many of them were loose on the ground, thousands are embedded in the rocks and they vary in size from just barely visible to as...
Homeschool Den / Trips We've Taken
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 19, 2010 · Last modified July 9, 2017
We spent time at the LaBrea Tar Pits in California. We saw fossils of some of the ancient American mammals, got to look into the fish-bowl science lab and watch scientists clean and sort small fossil pieces.
This year (2009-2010) our main units included natural disasters,China, biomes/animal habitats, ancient Greece (we did ancientEgypt just before this school year officially started and before Istarted this blog), flowers and apples (the last two were gearedmore towards my preschooler). We also enjoyed lots of scienceexperiments (almost weekly) and the younger kids really enjoyedthe theme time tables. We did a lot with geography throughout the year and reallyenjoyed doing country/continent swaps...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 12, 2010
Someone asked me what our homeschool schedule looks like. At first I was happy to write about it. Then the more I thought about it, the more stressed I became. Practically EVERY day is different here at the homeschool den! We have a general routine, but I’m just as likely to scrap it and take the kids out for a hike, outbush, to a playground or to the desert park...
We learned about the ancient Greek olympicsand talked about the modern Olympics. Wewatched a video of the 2004 Olympics inAthens and LD made an olympic victorywreath. Of course the 2010 winter Olympics beginFeb. 12 and we will do some activities totie into that. Activity Village has some activitiesand website links about the Vancouver olympics.Here are a couple other resources that I mightcheck out in more detail about the winter Olympicssoon:...
History: Ancient Greece Unit / History: World Religions
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 24, 2010
We read a wonderful book about the Ancienct Greek gods and goddesses of Olympus by Aliki. The book had very visual pictures that went along well with the short myths about each god or goddess. It captured LD’s imagination and he really learned a lot from its simple retelling. We read through the entire book and LD has asked me to re-read sections again. We also read the myth of...
Today we went to the local science museum. I let mydaughter (4) take the photos. The pictures below includeancient sea life (trilobites, etc.) and meteorites. When we visited the scientist’s lab back in October, hetold us that he and three fellow scientists put togetherthe entire exhibit in just eight weeks (to get ready forsome dignitary’s visit). They worked from early morningtil midnight to put it all together. Here’s the links...
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.
