Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 23, 2016 · Last modified September 15, 2020
Cold Water Currents Experiments: We’ve been continuing on with our ocean unit. Ocean currents are affected by water density — salinity and temperature. We talked about salinity a week or so ago. Last week, we talked how temperature affects water density and movement. Let me share a couple of our activities: For our first activity, you need a paper cup or water bottle, duct tape, dye, and a clear plastic...
Homeschool Den / Science: Ocean Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 14, 2016 · Last modified April 2, 2021
Ocean Unit: Today, we have five hands-on activities about salinity to share with you. What is salinity? It is the measure of salts in the ocean. Why is the ocean salty? • Salts found in rocks and minerals that are washed to the sea. • Underwater volcanoes. With these experiments we explored what salinity is and why salinity is important to our understanding of the ocean and ocean currents. Why do...
Kindergarten / Montessori (general info) / Science / Science Experiments
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 4, 2016 · Last modified May 30, 2017
As many of you may know, I have been working hard to get some of the images in our older posts working again. (It’s a complicated story, but it has to do with our moving our blog from Parents.com where we were for several years, to our new location here.) Anyway, I’ve been fixing old posts and realized I should share some of these posts for our new readers! So...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Outdoor Fun
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 19, 2016 · Last modified February 18, 2016
A lot of the time I write posts focused just on one topic… like the Renaissance sheets I just shared on Wednesday or the comma worksheet I’m going to share next week. But other times, I just want to chit-chat about what’s going on… and that’s what this post is going to be! Homeschooling has been going pretty well lately. We are trying to keep going at a steady pace...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 4, 2016 · Last modified August 11, 2023
We have close to a hundred science posts, if not more! So, I made this page to help you find some of the science resources, notebook pages, and hands-on activity ideas we have here on the blog. The table below organizes all of our science posts. I hope it’s helpful! If you ever have any questions, feel free to drop me a line. Plus, if there’s a topic you need...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Preschool at Home / History: China Unit / Homeschool Den / Kindergarten
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 3, 2016 · Last modified February 1, 2016
This year, Chinese New Year is on Monday, February 8th, 2016. I wanted to share the free printable I made last year and also share the China lapbook and some of the activities the kids did when they were ages 2-6 or so. I also highlighted some of the books that the kids loved at that age. First, here is the free printable. There are clothes-pin number and letter cards....
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 29, 2016 · Last modified March 1, 2024
Homeschool History Units I wanted to make a page that will make it easier to see what history resources we have available on our blog. These are some of the history units we have covered so far in our homeschool and the posts I’ve written related to each unit. As many of you know, we *love* hands-on activities and have done lots of creative activities along the way. 🙂 You...
Holiday: Valentine's Day / Homeschool Den / Science / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 28, 2016 · Last modified May 6, 2017
Chocolate Making Activity We did this Make Your Own Chocolate Kit (affiliate link) a number of years ago and we all loved it! After we went over the Rain Forest Plants, it was the perfect time and excuse to make our own chocolate again! The write-up they have in the kit is well done. We read that aloud together before actually making the chocolate. It explains the history of chocolate...
Science: Biology Unit / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 18, 2016 · Last modified July 25, 2021
As you know, we’re working on a biology unit. I thought I would share a little bit about the animal activities ED (Grade 2) is working on before talking about our biome activities (in the next post). In the animal packet that I shared at the end of December, there is a whole section on animal tracks. ED pulled those back out again and was working on those the past...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Kindergarten / Kindergarten Math / Math General Posts / Math--Addition / Montessori (general info)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 12, 2016 · Last modified January 5, 2020
Today I’ve got some free Montessori-style addition pages to share with you! There are some pages with no regrouping and some with regrouping (ie. carrying). These are similar to the pages I made for ED a couple of years ago. It really helped her with the columns laid out and in the Montessori colors. I used pages like these for all three of my kids as they moved on to...
Games for Thinking and Learning / Holiday: Christmas Activities / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 25, 2015 · Last modified October 31, 2017
We play a lot of games and with the holidays coming up, I thought I would highlight some of our favorites. DD absolutely *loves* board games so we have a huge selection of card games and board games in our cabinets! I’m going to start with a couple of games that we use regularly in our homeschool, then will highlight some of the games we love pulling out for family...
Homeschool Den / Science Experiments / Science: Chemistry Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 29, 2015 · Last modified May 9, 2022
Today, I want to share the three more chemistry activities we did during our unit on chemistry for my youngest, who is currently 7. Mixtures Un-Mixing: Chromatography DNA Kit Earlier this week, I shared the first two science experiments we did, and you can find those here (and in the free pdf printable at the bottom of this post): Matter is Neither Created Nor Destroyed (Molecules switch atoms) – Chapter...
Active Math Games / Homeschool Den / Math--Division / Math--Multiplication / Math: Pre-Algebra
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 21, 2015
The weather is gorgeous, so once again it was time to take advantage of the lovely temperatures, get active, and practice some math! For this game we drew a giant circle out of chalk and put numbers into each space all around the circle. Which numbers? We wrote down the numbers as we skip counted by 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s. (2 thru 20, 3 thru 30, 4 thru 40 and...
Welcome to the 4th post in this summer series. I am highlighting a “passel” of posts in this series. This is just a random assortment of activities, printables and posts that you may have missed in the six years I’ve been writing this blog!! Hope you find something useful today. Vertebrate – Invertebrate Cards – These sorting cards are free!! They are useful as kids start learning about classifying animals...
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.
