Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Freebies / History: Geography Activities / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Science / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats / Science: Rain Forests
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 14, 2012 · Last modified November 15, 2015
On Tuesday I shared the biomes pin map that the kids and I used. We looked not only at where the desert, tundra and grassland regions were, but took note of the rain forest regions of the world. Next I brought out the rain forest plant cards I had made several years ago. Although our main goal was to look at a history of chocolate to go along with our...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 6, 2012 · Last modified May 3, 2016
There are so many different styles of homeschooling and each family will pick and choose the elements that suits their homeschool style. If your homeschooling is anything like ours it evolves continually as you find what suits each child. Some of the homeschool styles you may have heard about include: Classical education Charlotte Mason Montessori Unschooling Unit Studies Virtual Homeschooling Waldorf Eclectic Living Books — Well, I’ve never heard anything...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Homeschool Den / Science / Science: Human Body Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 7, 2012 · Last modified February 21, 2022
I thought ED and DD (4 and6) would really enjoy doing some activities related to the human body again. As it turned out DD was quite sick so ED and I worked on this ourselves. LD came in only at the end when we looked at the Bio Digital Human online. First I outlined her body. Then she built her skeletal system. We love the book, Look Into Your Body: All About...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / History: Geography Activities / History: This is the United States-Unit Study (grade 1) / Homeschool Den / Science: Earth Science Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 22, 2012 · Last modified April 1, 2016
NAME THAT CONTINENT: One morning in collection (our group time) I brought out a beach ball globe. We took turns tossing the ball around the circle. Each time someone caught the ball they had to look at where their thumb had landed and had to name that continent. The kids quickly became silly, but we did manage to get a few rounds in for each of them. Another preschool geography...
Ages 2-6: Fire Safety / Health / Must Read / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Human Body Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 5, 2012 · Last modified August 23, 2018
Germ Experiment: When I saw this germ experiment, I knew we had to add this into our unit on First Aid. After all keeping ourselves healthy is as important as patching up the injuries, right?! The experiment called for gelatin, sugar and petri dishes. We didn’t have petri dishes so used paper cups and covered them immediately with glad wrap in lieu of a cover. Boil 1/2 cup of water...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 21, 2012 · Last modified August 13, 2016
Hi again! I’m Liesl. That’s a picture of me as we hiked down into the Grand Canyon in May. Love that we have the flexibility to create our own schedule… and can define what learning is! We feel that homeschooling is not just learning out of a book, it’s the experiences we have in the wider world too! 🙂 Before I tell you about myself, let me address some of...
Recipes / Science / Science: Astronomy Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 4, 2012 · Last modified December 24, 2015
We had a lot of fun with this part of our astronomy unit.We talked about the phases of the moon. We started off with a lamp and held an egg in our hand. Then we moved the egg slowly around, watching how the shadow on the egg changed as the egg moved relative to the earth/our eyes. We all took turns slowly watching the shadows on the egg change (photo...
Science / Science: Astronomy Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 29, 2011 · Last modified January 11, 2016
On this day we read about the Moon and did the lapbook components to add to our science notebook. What’s perfect about these lapbooks for us right now is the writing is not overwhelming and reinforces the main points we’ve gone over. We used the Moon — Speedy Lapbook by Homeschool Bits (which was quite inexpensive). Moon Craters: Our activity that day was to talk about why the surface of...
Science / Science: Astronomy Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 28, 2011 · Last modified January 11, 2016
The moon is very far away (225,622 miles to 252,088 miles depending on its position in its elliptical orbit around the Earth). NASA had to be very careful about the calculations they made to send someone to the moon especially since the moon is a moving target. In this activity, the kids are trying to hit the moon (a nut suspended on a string) that is swinging back and forth....
Science / Science Experiments / Science: Astronomy Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 19, 2011 · Last modified December 24, 2015
The kids have been begging for some hands-on science experiments. I have a bigger unit planned, but since December and January will be a bit broken up as far as our schooling goes, I decided to delve into a short unit with lots of experiments based on one of Janice VanCleave’s books (202 Oozing, Bubbling, Dripping, Bouncing, Experiments) and lots of notebook/lapbook pages from Homeschool Bits. Here’s some of what...
Science / Science: Human Body Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 26, 2011 · Last modified February 21, 2022
Our study of the heart and circulatory system started with a listen to our own heartbeats. We measured our heart rates when resting and after walking, running and skipping. Then using a graph put out by Texas heart institute(4th grade curriculum, p. 25, no longer available), we graphed our results. Heart as a Pump: We did this experiment: When your heart beats it acts like a tennis ball filled with...
Science / Science: Human Body Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 19, 2011 · Last modified February 21, 2022
Our Study of the Human Hand Why do we have so many bones in our hand? We talked about the fact that there are 27 bones in the hand. First, to demonstrate why this is important I did an activity we had done a couple years ago. We pretended that we just had one bone per finger by taping popcycle sticks to their fingers. Then they had to pick up...
Freebies / Science / Science: Ocean Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 18, 2011 · Last modified April 2, 2021
The ocean is divided into different layers. The zones differ in temperature, water pressure and available nutrients. Marine organisms live in different zones according to the amount of sunlight that reaches there. Sunlight Zone: More than 90% of marine life lives in the Sunlight Zone. Twilight Zone: Animals that live in the twilight zone must be able to survive cold temperatures, an increase in water pressure and dark waters. There are no plants in...
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...
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.
