Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 27, 2012 · Last modified March 16, 2019
Lots of people have shared their school plans for this next year in the not-back-to-school blog hop: curriculum week. In fact, I shared our preschool curriculum plans several weeks ago. Now finally, here are our basic plans for DD and LD this next year. While they work on their own levels for math and language arts, we do most of our other units together. As you’ll see, much of our day...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Organizing and Cleaning / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Must Read / Workboxes
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 24, 2012 · Last modified March 14, 2019
I’ve spent a lot of time reorganizing our homeschool room this year. I know lots of other homeschoolers are sharing pictures of their learning spaces in the not-back-to-school blog hop. I thought I’d share some photos of our homeschool room as well. In the picture below you see our 3-ring notebooks, the craft table, LD’s writing desk, a bookshelf and DD’s desk (back by the window). A lot of our...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Freebies / Homeschool Den / Math General Posts / Math--Addition / Math: Preschool Math / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 15, 2012 · Last modified March 9, 2016
This week we’ve added in a bit of domino math to ED’s math time. I know there are lots of domino math sheets out there including the domino mats and cards from mathwire.com, at Making Learning Fun (domino addition, subtraction or multiplication), and a domino worksheet made by Erica over at Confessions of a Homeschooler. I needed one that wouldn’t overwhelm ED, though. I wanted just a few problems on the...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Science: Human Body Unit / Science: The 5 Senses
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 9, 2012 · Last modified June 26, 2020
Five Senses Unit – The Sense of Taste All week the kids have been waiting impatiently for the taste activities! LD remembered doing this three or four years ago and couldn’t wait! We first talked about the tongue and where you sense different tastes. We made a cute tongue model and labeled the different areas. I’ll show you how we put it together with a quick picture collage: How we made a...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Preschool at Home / Homeschool Den / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 7, 2012 · Last modified March 9, 2016
Last week we started back to school, but I thought I’d spend a few minutes sharing our overall goals this for this next semester. I’ll start off sharing our plans for ED’s preschool. Early next week I’ll share the plans for DD (age 6) and LD (almost 9). Math This year I decided to go with Right Start Math Level A for ED (age 4). I did this curriculum with...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Science / Science: The 5 Senses
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 3, 2012 · Last modified March 7, 2016
ED is doing a brief unit on the 5 senses. I’ll talk a little more about our general activities below, but first I wanted to share this wonderful sound game we played! One of the activities we did together this week was called Sound Bingo. I downloaded the sound files such as a baby, guitar, monkey, fireworks, scissors (41 sounds in all) onto my laptop and printed out bingo cards...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Freebies / Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Reading / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published July 16, 2012 · Last modified August 3, 2016
One of the things I’ve been doing since returning from our trip is to continue planning for our homeschool. I came across an email from ReadingTeacher.com. [Added in 9 months Later: These are no longer available for free from ReadingTeacher. Instead I wound up visiting Dr. Mariott’s website and downloaded them from there. We wound up using all 52 of these readers with ED, my youngest. They really worked well...
Homeschool: Interviews with other Homeschoolers / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 21, 2012 · Last modified April 16, 2015
This is a continuation of yesterday’s interview, Homeschooling Through Spousal Deployments, a Destructive Flood and More. Today I’m continuing that interview starting with some questions about homeschooling through high school. Many people decide to put their kids into school for their high school years. What has made you decide to continue homeschooling them? First, the kids really don’t want to go to “regular school” – they like the freedom...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Interviews with other Homeschoolers / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 20, 2012 · Last modified April 16, 2015
In this series, I have had the privilege of interviewing other homeschoolers from across the country. For today’s interview I’m turning to my sister, Cynthia, and brother-in-law, Tom who homeschool their three children. Cynthia works full time at a university as a professor and associate provost and is a prolific writer; Tom is in the National Guard. They have weathered some pretty trying periods in their homeschooling life and I...
History: Ancient Aztecs, Incas and Mayans / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 15, 2012 · Last modified February 17, 2016
Did you know that more than $90 billion a year is spent on chocolate around the world? On Valentine’s American spend around $700 million on chocolate! These numbers are expected to grow as the population increases and the number of people in the developing world who can afford chocolate increases. Part of our study of the Mayans and Aztecs was to learn a bit more about the history of chocolate. ...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Interviews with other Homeschoolers / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 13, 2012 · Last modified April 16, 2015
Today I have the privilege of introducing Dayna Martin. She is a well-known leader in the unschooling community. She has been interviewed in dozens of television and radio pieces about radical unschooling. She speaks nationally and internationally at unschooling conferences. Dayna is a pioneer who has been at the forefront of the conscious parenting and unschooling movement for the past decade. Author of Radical Unschooling: A Revolution Has Begun, and...
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 7, 2012 · Last modified May 3, 2016
This is the fourth post helping describe how I go about planning for the new school year. Here are the previous posts in this series: Here are the questions I consider. This post looks a back at our school year. I talk about what went well and what could use some improvement. Yesterday’s post talked about how I assess our homeschooling philosophy: Am I happy with *how* we are homeschooling? I...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 6, 2012 · Last modified May 3, 2016
There are so many different styles of homeschooling and each family will pick and choose the elements that suits their homeschool style. If your homeschooling is anything like ours it evolves continually as you find what suits each child. Some of the homeschool styles you may have heard about include: Classical education Charlotte Mason Montessori Unschooling Unit Studies Virtual Homeschooling Waldorf Eclectic Living Books — Well, I’ve never heard anything...
Homeschool Den / Math General Posts / Math--Multiplication
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 22, 2012
Last November we reviewed a multiplication card game called Speed! We still love this card game so much! DD has started playing it almost daily as she works on her 3s and 4s times tables and practices skip counting. We play a variety of games with these decks of cards. Since DD is just learning how to play we don’t do the competitive, quick game of Speed (see details about...
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.
