Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / How to Start Homeschooling / Science / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 22, 2014 · Last modified January 1, 2015
A week or so ago, a reader asked me if I had any other tips about homeschool planning. She had read the posts I had put together on short term and long term goals and planning, but wondered if I had any other thoughts. She wondered how I make sure we keep tabs on the resources and books and planning things out in general. I spent a lot of the...
Homeschool Den / How to Start Homeschooling / Language Arts - Grammar Worksheets / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 18, 2014 · Last modified June 24, 2015
Welcome back to the our series on how to start homeschooling. During the past week, I have provided information about some of the homeschool curriculums available out there in the different subject areas. Today I wanted to share some of the writing and grammar programs available to homeschoolers. This is not an exhaustive list. You may want to order the (free) Rainbow Resource Catalog, which is packed with homeschool reviews. But these...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / How to Start Homeschooling / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 11, 2014 · Last modified February 22, 2015
When we first started homeschooling, I read The Well Trained Mind. The thought of covering history in four year cycles sounded like a wonderful way to approach history. After all, the kids would build on their former knowledge… learning about the ancient world several times, but going into more depth each time round. History was broken into these four year cycles: Ancients Middle Ages and Early Renaissance Late Renaissance/Early Modern...
Active Math Games / Freebies / Homeschool Den / How to Start Homeschooling / Math General Posts / Must Read / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 7, 2014 · Last modified March 23, 2017
This is the second part in my talk about math curriculums. In the previous post, not only did I list some of the better known homeschool math curriculums, but I shared 15+ ideas for making math engaging and fun! (Math Curriculums and Active Engaging Math Activities) Today I wanted to share some of the materials I’ve made for the kids. I’ve found that the kids really enjoy when I make...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / How to Start Homeschooling / Must Read / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 5, 2014 · Last modified March 17, 2016
I’ve been asked fairly regularly, “How do you know what to teach the kids?” That is definitely a daunting task, especially if you are pulling your child out of public/private school mid-year. Homeschool does not have to look like traditional school and there’s no rule saying that learning has to come from books or a certain set of books. There are a lot of homeschool curriculum options out there… and...
Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / How to Start Homeschooling / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 4, 2014 · Last modified March 18, 2016
When parents are thinking about homeschooling, they want to know exactly “how to start.” That’s such a huge question I’ve actually written a book… or rather, most of a book. It’s about 200 pages and I’m still not quite done! But I still want to write a shorter blog post to help those parents wondering what to do to get started homeschooling. First things first, make sure you find out...
Homeschool Den / How to Start Homeschooling / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published July 31, 2014 · Last modified April 10, 2015
This is the question our family gets asked most often… or some variation of it… Will you homeschool through high school? How will you teach the tough subjects like calculus? My son will be entering 6th grade this year… In our area he would be entering middle school. DD is a 4th grader and ED will be in 1st grade. (You know, we’re homeschoolers so really they do work on...
Homeschool Den / How to Start Homeschooling / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published July 30, 2014 · Last modified June 26, 2015
As I start off this series, I realize there might be some readers who are fairly new to our blog. I thought I’d share how we got started homeschooling (and blogging about our adventures). Homeschooling was on our radar even before we had kids. My older sister had kids before we did. They decided to homeschool their kids just about the time we had our son, LD. Also, my cousin...
Freebies / Math General Posts / Math--Multiplication
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 25, 2014 · Last modified January 8, 2017
I made some winter-themed multiplication pages for my daughter. They are similar the addition pages I shared a few days ago. There are eight pages. The first few pages only have multiplication problems up through the 4s and 5s. The later pages have problems all the way to the 8s and 9s (8×6, 9×9). They are free to download: Free Winter Themed Multiplication Practice Worksheets We also have some free...
Freebies / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 21, 2013
Since I am wrapping up the school year, I thought I would go through and share some of the most popular posts from this school year. Most of them had to do with some of the free materials I made, but two of them had to do with family life in general–3-The Most Stressful Number of Kids and the post I wrote just after our beloved Vovo, hubby’s grandmother, died — The...
Freebies / Homeschool Den / Math General Posts / Math--Multiplication
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 3, 2013 · Last modified April 6, 2016
Last week DD played many, many rounds of Fast Track. This is an idea I got years ago from Peggy Kaye’s wonderful book, Games for Math: Playful Ways to Help Your Child Learn Math, From Kindergarten to Third Grade (affiliate link). We used the little Pokemon-themed flashcards I made for her a month or so ago… she’s working hard on those multiplication facts! This is a homemade board with several...
Homeschool Den / Math General Posts / Math--Fractions / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 25, 2013 · Last modified March 16, 2016
For the past couple of weeks, LD has learned about equivalent fractions in math. A week or so ago, I shared a couple of the packet and equivalent fraction cards I had made for him. We also bought a equivalent fractions dominoes game (and a fraction dominoes game for DD) and now that we’ve had a chance to play it a few times, I thought it was worth a mention...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 30, 2012
Wow, it’s the end of 2012… a great time to reflect on the year we’ve had. Here are some of the highlights from this year: our favorite homeschool activities: It’s hard to choose just two, but I guess these are the ones that really stand out for me at the moment… the Black Plague simulation we did. None of us ever made it to our destination!! The kids really loved...
History: Africa Unit / History: Ancient Egypt / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 12, 2012 · Last modified March 16, 2016
Every now and then I like to write up these posts. The first one I did was when the kids were 3 and 1 (and ED wasn’t born yet!)…I’ve done them periodically since then. This is a glimpse of what goes on when we’re actually home all day. It’s not a “typical” day because as homeschoolers each day is different than the day before–at least in our family. That’s what...
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.
