Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Homeschool Den / Language Arts - Grammar Spelling Reading Writing Categories / Language Arts: Books: Children's Literature / Language Arts: Spelling / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 5, 2020 · Last modified February 10, 2021
Earlier this week, I had a wonderful back-and-forth email conversation with a reader about literature and language arts in our homeschool. She had questions about the literature book/s we were using when my kids were in grades 2, 5 and 7. I thought I would share a lot of that conversation with you today. It highlights some of the language arts books/texts/resources we have used over the years. Plus, I’ve...
Freebies / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / How to Start Homeschooling / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published July 16, 2020 · Last modified August 10, 2023
Tips for How to Start Homeschooling! I field a LOT of email from readers looking for advice on how to start homeschooling. I wanted to give some tips and pointers from someone who has been homeschooling for a very long time! 🙂 We have been homeschooling right from the start and my kids decided to continue homeschooling right through high school! Are you starting to homeschool or need fresh inspiration?...
All About Homeschooling! / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Organizing and Cleaning / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc) / How to Start Homeschooling / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published July 11, 2020 · Last modified January 1, 2024
Finding materials on the Homeschool Den! I wrote this post to help you find some of the pages, posts and homeschool resources within our blog that might be the most useful for you. Over the years, I have made homeschool packets on everything from history and science to spelling, math, spelling and foreign languages (German & Spanish). And, many of those are free! We have materials from preschool through high...
Free Calendar Planning Pages / Free Homeschool Planner / Freebies / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 2, 2019 · Last modified January 16, 2022
Grab this free printable 2020-2021 calendar! Updated Calendar Available! The newest version is now available. The 2022-2023 School Year Calendar goes from Jan. 2022 through August 2023. Click here to go to that page for the updated 2022-2023 School Year Calendar. Yes, it is still free! UPDATE: You might want to go to this post instead because it has the FREE printable Calendar for January 2021 through August 2022. Today...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 19, 2019 · Last modified July 26, 2023
Do you know about this great literature resource? The Glencoe Literature Library page has Free Literature Study Guides (UPDATE – These appear not to be available any longer.) for a huge selection of well-known novels. The Literature Study Guides include sections such as Meet the Author Introducing the Novel Before you Read Active Reading activities Personal Responses Update: UNFORTUNATELY THESE GUIDES DON’T SEEM TO BE AVAILABLE ANYMORE! I thought I...
Homeschool Den / Language Arts - Grammar Spelling Reading Writing Categories / Language Arts: Books: Children's Literature / Language Arts: Reading / Language Arts: Spelling
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 28, 2019
Have you been planning out your language arts for next year? I thought I would share my plans with ED (who will be in Grade 6 next year). She’s 11. Below you’ll find out how we tackle the various parts of language arts: literature skills (plot, setting, character, point of view, and so forth), grammar, vocabulary, spelling, literature (reading lots of good novels), and writing (which I’ve written about in...
Free Homeschool Planner / Homeschool: Organizing and Cleaning / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 18, 2019 · Last modified April 19, 2019
I am excited to share with you some bran-new spring planning pages. They’ve been add to our free 150+page Homeschool Planner! Over spring break, I’ve been doing a bit of homeschool organization. Not only have I gone through out books and pulled out things to donate, but also I printed out new pages for my homeschool planner and have been spending time planning out the last 6 or 7 weeks...
Today, I’m sharing the free homeschool conference hand-outs I made for the conference I’m speaking at this weekend (Friday & Saturday). I also wanted to share some of the helpful homeschool resources we have here on the blog. Welcome to those of you from the conference and/or are stopping by for the first time!! It’s been so fun to meet and talk with so many of you!! To my long-time,...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc) / Homeschooling in the News / How to Start Homeschooling / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 5, 2019
As people begin to look into homeschooling, they want to find out some basics: How many homeschoolers are there? What are the benefits and challenges of homeschooling? Will my child be able to get into college? How will my kids do if they haven’t been to a formal school? What about socialization? Will they have enough friends? Let’s dig in to some of these common homeschool questions! How many homeschoolers...
Free Homeschool Planner / Freebies
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 13, 2019 · Last modified September 23, 2022
This afternoon, I added in about 20 new pages to our free Homeschool Planner. I have been adding to this file for ages because I change up my own homeschool planner frequently! This Homeschool Planner pdf is now well over 125+ pages! Recently, I’ve been printing out two pages for each week. One is a grid with 9 areas where I can jot down some notes about each subject area…...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Random Thoughts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 10, 2019
We are always trying to encourage our kids on this wonderful homeschool journey, right?! This semester we started off with a family discussion… a discussion that I hope will get to the heart of the kids’ own motivation, self-determination and the path they’ll/we’ll be creating for this semester. You guys know it, I am a planner. I am a curriculum creator… but when it comes to the day-to-day I am...
Free Calendar Planning Pages / Freebies
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 22, 2018 · Last modified December 8, 2019
Today I wanted to share our (latest) free calendar printable, 2019-2020. This free calendar printable covers 20 months (January 2019 through August 2020). It starts in January 2019 and includes the 2019-2020 school year through August 2020. Note: The FREE January 2020 to August 2021 Calendar is now available!! I like having a calendar that includes the holidays, the change in seasons, and things like day light saving which is...
Homeschool Den / Language Arts - Grammar Worksheets
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 3, 2018
I wanted to highlight some of the free grammar and writing worksheets and printables we have tucked away on the website. It has been a while since I have talked about these and we have dozens of free resources!! I’m going to start with a few of the free writing resources we have and then I’ll give you links to our free grammar worksheets on the major comma rules, apostrophes,...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / How to Start Homeschooling / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 1, 2018 · Last modified July 18, 2020
This post is both for first-time homeschoolers who are wondering where to start and for veterans who are looking for some inspiring teaching strategies to get the kids completely engaged day-to-day! Since I’ve gotten a number emails/messages asking where to begin I thought I would write a post to say You CAN Do This!! This post may also have some useful resources/activity ideas for those of you who have been...
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.
