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 August 8, 2014 · Last modified June 9, 2015
Yes, literally! After 10 months of ear problems , I am heading into my 6th (and hopefully) final ear surgery this morning at Johns Hopkins. [You can read about the previous 5 surgeries to address my semi-circular canal dehiscence and the crazy symptoms here.] My symptoms these past months include severe dizziness and balance issues, vision problems (things blur when I turn my head and bounce around when I walk/move), problems with...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / How to Start Homeschooling / Kindergarten Math / Math General Posts / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 6, 2014 · Last modified March 10, 2016
In this series, I thought I’d try to offer new homeschoolers a starting point for finding homeschool curriculums that works for your family. Today I’ll be talking about math. It’s sometimes tricky to find the curriculum that works well for you and your kids. It’s helpful to ask around (online and in your community) to see what will work for your child. If you can go to a homeschool curriculum...
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...
History: American History / History: Native American Indians Unit / Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Books: Children's Literature
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 21, 2014 · Last modified November 14, 2017
I was looking for Native American children’s books written by and about Native Americans. I found Debbie Reese’s website, American Indians in Children’s Literature. What a great resource! Today I’d like to share some of the books we read together this past week. I went with the books that were available at our library and that were appealing to the kids. 1) Buffalo Bird Girl: A Hidatsa Story (affiliate link) This is a...
Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Books: Children's Literature / Summer Activities
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 16, 2014 · Last modified January 1, 2016
I was recently asked if we planned to homeschool throughout the summer. We often start back to school a bit earlier in August than our public school friends, but our family has decided that we need most of the summer off… at least from our more formal approach to school. For one thing, the majority of the kids’ friends have “off” during the summer, so we set up more playdates...
Homeschool: Planning and Preparation
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 9, 2014 · Last modified June 18, 2020
The end of the school year is coming up quickly. I usually take some time to reflect how the year went for our family. We’ll talk about some of the things we covered this year… everything from really diving into the Writing Workshop for the first time to our huge units on India, Gandhi, the Civil Rights Movement and China… plus our science units on Simple Machines, Weather, Water… our adventures...
Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Books: Children's Literature / Language Arts: Reading / Must Read / Summer Activities
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 29, 2014 · Last modified March 21, 2015
My daughter reads all the time. She will grab anything that’s out and about… from the easy readers that ED brings home from the libraries to books that LD recommends. I thought I’d share some of the series that she’s flown through this semester. Dog Diaries: She’s read them all… Ginger, Buddy, Barry, Togo, Dash. She said they were wonderful. I notice there is also a series called Horse Diaries...
Freebies / Homeschool Den / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Earth Science Unit / Science: Weather Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 13, 2014 · Last modified October 5, 2017
Today I’m going to share some free weather worksheets I made for the kids. This is for our study of the weather: the uneven heating of the Earth and how that affects our weather, fronts, and more! Yesterday, I shared some of the science experiments we did about air. We learned that air has weight, hot air rises and more. We are using a science textbook as the spine of...
History: China Unit / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 23, 2014 · Last modified September 5, 2022
We have been studying Ancient China this semester. We are using The Story of Ancient China (affiliate link) (see more about that below) as our spine, but also have read selections from the Story of the World (affiliate link) and the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia. This is the packet that I made to go along with some of our readings. These are now included in our 100+ page Ancient China Unit. Recently,...
Freebies / Homeschool Den / Science / Science: Earth Science Unit / Science: Weather Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 21, 2014 · Last modified September 6, 2018
Layers of the Atmosphere Packet (Now Updated!) Worksheets, Notebook Pages and Hands-On Activities! The Layers of the Atmosphere Packet has worksheets, notebook pages and various hands-on activities. It has well over 50 pages of materials. Here are some of the topics we cover: Earth System Science — the “spheres” including the atmosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, biosphere, and magnetosphere the five layers of the atmosphere: Troposphere Stratosphere Mesosphere Thermosphere Exosphere The...
Ages 2-6: Bird Unit / Holiday: Easter / Science / Science Experiments
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 12, 2014 · Last modified January 26, 2017
EggSperiment 1: Why do eggs move the way they do? Have the kids roll an egg around on a table. Talk about why they are shaped the way they are. Because eggs are a funny and oblong shape, they roll and wobble around in a certain way. Eggs wobble when they roll so they won’t go far from a mother hen and they will stay inside of a nest. If eggs...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 1, 2014 · Last modified September 5, 2022
When we delve into a new unit, I search high and low for a wide variety of books. Not only do I want non-fiction books, but I also want books that bring the topic alive… and stories and novels are a wonderful way to do that. This is a long (and probably incomplete!) list of the books we’ve used and are using in our China unit. We’ve read a number...
History: American History / Language Arts: Writing / WWII
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 21, 2014 · Last modified February 2, 2021
I received several emails and a message from people interested in the WWII Portfolio Project I made for LD. So, here it is! My son is doing some research work on WWII. Except for reading some novels last year (like Number the Stars), we have not covered this topic at all… He has been doing quite a bit of reading and has watched a video before jumping into the project ideas...
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.
