Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Ages 2-6: Theme Time (age 2-4) / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 21, 2013 · Last modified February 9, 2017
This is a post from several years ago that had its own separate page. At the time the kids were about 18-20 months (or so), 3 years old and 5 years old (I’m not sure exactly when because the page wasn’t dated). We still lived in Australia at the time I wrote this post. A Day in the Life of Our Homeschool Someone asked me what our homeschool schedule looks...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 20, 2013 · Last modified August 19, 2018
Someone asked what our typical homeschool day looks like. Actually, no day is really ever like another, but I’ll do my best to share the general rhythm of our day… that is, if we’re home all day. Kindergarten Day: ED (now in kindergarten) is still the first one up most days. She and I sit down together to eat at the dining room table and I read her a book...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Homeschooling in the News / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published July 29, 2013 · Last modified January 28, 2018
People are often curious why homeschoolers have chosen this route. After all, the vast majority of people choose to send their children to public school. On the other hand, there are now more children being home-schooled than are enrolled in charter and voucher schools combined. I read recently that there are now over 2 million homeschooled children. In 1999, three reasons for homeschooling were the most frequently cited: 49 percent...
This post has some free German worksheets that you can use with beginners. These are some of the printable materials I used with my kids when they were first learning German. In this post, I’ve shared some of the resources we used as we reviewed basic words in German: numbers, colors, words around the house, words in a school room, animals, etc. Be sure to scroll all the way to...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 19, 2013 · Last modified May 16, 2016
This is such a fun post to write! This is where I get to reminisce and think about the amazing year we’ve had. It has been a blast… tiring at times (particularly in February when LD had a lot of out-of-town gymnastics meets, I had lots of meetings and was training for a half-marathon). But looking back, we had a fulfilling, successful year. We do a lot of our activities...
Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 31, 2013 · Last modified March 26, 2016
The weather feels like summer and we had a week away, but we actually haven’t quite brought our school year to a close. We have a couple of weeks left partly because we haven’t done our end-of-year testing yet. As part of the requirements for our state, the kids have to take a national exam (there are several to choose from). The tests are graded elsewhere, we receive the results...
Freebies / History: Africa Unit / History: Geography Activities / Montessori (general info) / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 17, 2013 · Last modified August 15, 2020
FREE Montessori World Pin Map Printable You can make your own Montessori Style World Pin Map with this free printable! While my older kids were learning a lot about the location of the specific countries of Africa, my preschooler was working on world geography again. I thought I’d share some of the activities ED has been doing the past week or two. As always, we started out by singing the...
Homeschool Den / Must Read / Science: Digestive System / Science: Human Body Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 8, 2013 · Last modified August 21, 2022
We had so much fun with our Digestive System Unit. We did hands on activities to see how the digestive tract works (how nutrients pass through), made “fake”vomit, measured out the length of the digestive system and more! We broke our unit into three parts: Part I: Digestive System — Mouth Part II: Digestive System — Swallowing, How the epiglottis works Part III: Digestive System — The Digestive Tract I...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Science / Science: Digestive System / Science: Human Body Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 6, 2013 · Last modified August 21, 2022
We did a lot of hands-on activities over the course of two or three weeks. I’m going to put them all into one post. These hands-on activities are all activities we did as we went through our Digestive Unit. Be sure to check out our 150+ page Digestive System Packet too! Esophagus Activities: Does food fall down to the stomach? We proved that muscles helped move the food bolus down to...
History: Africa Unit / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 22, 2013 · Last modified February 20, 2017
One of the lovely things about homeschooling is that we can reach out to our community — both near and far. The kids and I helped a bit here in our community by volunteering at the local food pantry during the fall. They bagged apples and passed them out to people who came to the bi-weekly food bank. This semester, we’re doing a service project that spins off from our...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Preschool at Home / Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 19, 2013 · Last modified March 16, 2016
ED really enjoys writing… Here’s a picture of ED writing in her journal from last January. The kids and I made a special trip to Staples for them to pick out their own journals. I offered to write whatever they wanted for them, so they could record things about their day. While I wrote heaps for DD and LD, much to my surprise, ED insisted on writing in her journal...
History: Africa Unit / History: Geography Activities
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 17, 2013 · Last modified March 16, 2016
It has been quite a while since I talked about our African Unit. I think the last time I wrote, I shared the history pages I made about the Ghana and Mali Empires. We had also learned about some famous Africans such as Sundiata and Mansa Musa. The past couple of weeks, we’ve been learning more about contemporary Africa. We’ve been doing a lot of reading from Journey into Africa:...
Homeschool Den / Must Read / Science / Science: Digestive System / Science: Human Body Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 3, 2013 · Last modified February 21, 2022
Today I’m sharing our Human Body Systems Worksheets with you. This set provides an overview of the Body’s major systems. It also talks about human cells, tissues and organs. Once a year, we usually learn about one of the human body systems. One year, we went into great detail one year about the Skeletal System. Another year, we studied the digestive system. And recently, we learned about the circulatory system. We...
Language Arts - Grammar Worksheets / Language Arts: Writing / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 1, 2013
This year, we added in a new subject to our day — independent writing. My eldest has always been a reluctant writer. I was taken by surprise because he learned to read extremely early… by 5 he was reading easy chapter books… by 7 he was reading long novels. But his writing lagged behind; he seemed paralyzed to try writing. Mistakes made him freeze up, no matter how much I...
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.
