Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Language Arts: Books: Children's Literature / Language Arts: Reading
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 20, 2014 · Last modified March 21, 2015
There was a really interesting article over at Edutopia last month about the worry some educators have about how technology and testing are affecting the amount of reading kids are doing. Educators have noticed that some kids are struggling to read deeply and comprehend longer texts. Are kids reading books deeply and for pleasure? Since the invention of the printing press, there has been a plethora of reading materials available. Granted, not...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Homeschool Den / Montessori (general info) / Science / Science: Vertebrates - Invertebrates
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 12, 2014 · Last modified November 2, 2022
Animals and their Characteristics – The 5 Animal Groups These free pages are down below! Last week my daughter worked on vertebrates and invertebrates. From there she started working on the 5 animal groups. I also wanted to go over the characteristics of the various vertebrate animal groups with her. As she sorted the animal groups we talked about some of the characteristics of each group… fish and amphibians lay...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 22, 2014 · Last modified February 22, 2015
This is a list of some of the most useful homeschool and teaching resources from around the web. I have added in some free resources I found that integrate computer science concepts into science units, plus Engineering units for kids, and units from the CDC (Center for Disease Control). If you have any great resources and websites I should add to this list, leave a comment or leave me a note...
History: Civil Rights Movement / Homeschool Den / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 4, 2014 · Last modified March 3, 2016
This is a packet on the main events of the Civil Rights period that I made for the kids to add to their history notebook. I wanted them to have a visual way to remember many of the events we’ve read and studied about over the last four or five weeks. We sat together and went over the key events as we read many of the books in this unit....
Freebies / History: Civics, Government and Economics / History: Civil Rights Movement / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 10, 2014 · Last modified March 3, 2016
Yesterday I shared the Civil Rights books we’ll be using in our Civil Rights Movement unit. Before we go into a lot of depth about the events of the 1950s and 1960s, I wanted to make sure the kids really understood some of the history leading up to this period. I created a photo timeline of events to help my kids review (and/or understand) the events leading to the Civil...
History: Civil Rights Movement / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 9, 2014 · Last modified September 28, 2020
This semester we are doing a unit on the Civil Rights Movement. I came up with a long list of books that we can read with this unit. Most of them I found at our local library. I thought I would share the list I compiled in case someone else might find it useful: Civil Rights Movement Books you may want to read with your students: Elementary (these are...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool at Home / Must Read / Science / Science Experiments
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 3, 2014 · Last modified March 3, 2016
Five or six weeks ago, someone asked me how I go about setting up our science units. I wanted to spend some time really laying out that process. Since we have homeschooled from the start, I thought it would make the most sense to talk about the preschool years first. (Click here to see the second post in the series: Science in the Elementary Years. Science in the preschool years:...
Math General Posts / Math--Geometry
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 3, 2013 · Last modified July 20, 2018
Last fall (a year ago), LD did a unit on geometry. He needed some basic review of some of the things he learned — so I put together a small review pack for him. I’ll share it here for anyone who might find it useful. There are 6 pages, plus the answers. You can download the free Geometry Review Packet here: Geometry Review Worksheets He used the Geometry, Grades 6 –...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 26, 2013 · Last modified July 27, 2018
I thought I would put a post together that helps give a flavor of what our daily homeschooling routine looks like. So many of my posts are compilations of our activities, but they don’t actually show what happens day-to-day. It’s about time to do that again (and I enjoy reading these posts later as the kids get older!) We have finally gotten back to a relatively normal schedule. (If you...
Science / Science: Rocks and Minerals
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 13, 2013 · Last modified April 23, 2021
Are you studying Rocks and Minerals?! Be sure to check out this post again which covers how rocks have been used, famous rock landmarks, how we use minerals in our environment, mining, recycling and the months and birthstones. Be sure to check out the links to our hands-on activities about the three types of rocks: sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic which you’ll find below. This week, I’m out of commission. I’m...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Mom Stories
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 25, 2013
So, a couple days ago I wrote a blog post about how are homeschool routine is working out this year. It’s going pretty well and I love being back into a routine. But as for life in general, it’s sometimes hard to juggle everything. Preparing and time with the kids homeschooling takes up a good chunk of my day, as you can imagine. Plus, writing also takes time. But there...
Elem-Children's Music 1 (6 yr old) / Freebies / Music
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 24, 2013 · Last modified March 26, 2016
For many years, we did kindermusik classes. It was a wonderful mix of dancing, playing instruments, singing, learning about rhythm and more. When that finally came to an end — our friends moved away 🙁 — we spent the semester just working a bit on piano, singing songs (here’s a link to a kids song packet I put together for the kids this past summer). But I really wanted to...
Homeschool Den / Kindergarten / Language Arts: Writing / Science / Science: Human Body Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 17, 2013 · Last modified September 5, 2017
Over the summer, I stumbled across the Center for Disease Control’s Science Ambassador Program. What a great find! It has a series of lessons (maybe mini-unit would be a better term for them) on all kinds of various topics with challenging activities for students to learn about. Topics include — autism, birth defect, Hantavirus, HIV/Aids… and many more. What I like about their lessons is that they require the students...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Interviews with other Homeschoolers / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Homeschooling in the News
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 9, 2013
In August 2013, a new study was released showing a continued increase in the number and percentage of students who are homeschooled in America. The last time the U.S. government released data about the number of homeschooled students was back in 2007. How many homeschoolers are there? In 2007, 2.9% of students were homeschooled. In 2011-2012, 3.4% of students were homeschooled. In 2007, the number of homeschooled students was about 1.5...
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.
