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Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 31, 2011
I’ve been itching to do a posting about our general homeschool schedule/day. What things we cover aside from the units I so often post about. Reading: Both DD and LD are good readers now. DD is reading easier chapter books while LD is on longer chapter books now. They both get up in the morning and read while eating breakfast. I always sprinkle our dining room room table with books...
Math General Posts / Math--Addition
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published July 11, 2011 · Last modified December 4, 2015
This activity was made by a teacher named Debbie. It’s called Feed the Dog and has problems such as 10-7, 12-8, 2+5 and 3+2. I saw it at Oceans of First Grade Fun. You’ll find the link to print out the game there. You might be interested in this related post: Kindergarten Math (addition games/place value activities) You might also be interested in: Free Montessori Style Addition Sheets (No Regrouping):...
Math General Posts / Math--Multiplication
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 12, 2011 · Last modified December 31, 2015
Goodness, we have been so busy here there’s hardly been any time to write. It’s the end of the semester and many of the kids’ (and my) activities are coming to a close. There have been extra practices and parties and we’re still doing our slow but steady homeschool stuff. Lots of books and lots of games this time of year! Plus we’re finishing up some old (unfinished) lapbook projects...
I made some addition cards for DD this afternoon. We needed some new, more challenging addition cards to use with our ‘Fast Track’ board game. DD wanted flowers and butterfly cards, so I thought I’d give it a go. She declared that these were “beauuuuu – ti – ful.” Hope someone else can use them. Click here to view and print out the addition cards. If you want to print out...
Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Toddler/Preschool Activities / Holiday: St. Patrick's Day / Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 12, 2011 · Last modified January 27, 2016
There are such wonderful resources out there for those of you planning to do some St. Patrick’s Day activities with your kids. Here are some of the free St. Patrick’s Day units and printables I’ve come across this past week: Irish-themed letters (lower and upper case), numbers (0-20) and phonics cards; Powerpoint Explanation about St. Patrick and how he brought Christianity to Ireland Musings of Me — St. Patrick’s Day Teacher’s...
It turns out that DD has pneumonia and an ear infection as well. She’s been sleeping LOTS these past 10 days. Only today did she show interest in resuming work on her penguin lapbook. But she’s been pretty amazing — and has kept up with her reading and math most days despite being sick. She’s to the stage that she picks up books to read on her own as well....
Active Math Games / Math General Posts / Math--Addition
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 14, 2010
We try to play lots of games — and this one is worth a mention because it involves addition, subtraction and simple multiplication. It’s called Mmm Brains — so it also had great appeal to LD in particular! There’s a large selection of brains. Red brains are each 5 points. White brains are 1 point. There are 5 dice — with the numbers 1 through 5 in different colors (yellow,...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool at Home / Lapbooks / Science / Science: Vertebrates - Invertebrates
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 6, 2010 · Last modified December 9, 2019
A few weeks ago, I asked DD what she wanted to learn about. She chose to study butterflies and insects. We used two lapbooks. One is no longer available. The other one was a free lapbook on butterflies from Yee Shall Know. (Website no longer available.) (If you’ve never seen any of her lapbooks, I highly recommend her free lapbooks. (Website no longer available.) They are based on the Magic...
Ages 2-6: Bird Unit / Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Theme Time (age 2-4) / Math: Preschool Math
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 16, 2010
So aside from learning about the birds in our area (which are all new to the kids), I also selected a number of general bird and chicken activities to slip into their workboxes. Here are a couple they did today: DD had this chicken grid game from prekinders.com in her workbox today for math. We played with two dice and she had to try adding them together. That’s quite challenging...
This is probably not the typical workbox picture, is it?!As you can see, we’ve broken down the workboxes andstacked them, ready for the movers. Now all schoolsupplies that I’ve chosen for the next few months are inthe green bag there. (Ignore the blue tray; it has manipulatives,workbox subject labels and other random things that haveyet to be packed and put away.)These days, school is considerably less “hands on” sincewe haven’t...
Arts and Crafts / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 9, 2010 · Last modified December 5, 2021
Today in our study of the forest animal habitat we read The Mitten. (affiliate link) We read Jan Brett’s book first. Using the beautiful mitten masks by Jan Brett the kids reenacted the story by putting the animal into the mitten (the kids are holding up the masks in the picture above). The mitten is just a file folder, drawn in the shape of a mitten. Jan Brett’s printables for...
As I was out walking our dog this evening, I was thinkingabout my preschool posts. Just considering what I post, Ireally haven’t given a good view of what DD’s “preschoolday” really looks like. I would say the majority of theday is spent in creative play. She plays elaborate gameswith her stuffed animals, plastic animals, and doll house. She builds things with legos and K’nex with LD. She playsoutside. She, LD...
We’ll be posting more about science experiments for the next few weeks (after all that’s makes for better pictures), but we are more or less back into the swing of things with: mathhandwritingjournal writing (or preschool activities for DD)German (review: greetings, numbers and animals)reading (them reading to me)book time (me reading to them)art (daily crafts/drawing — if not multiple times a day!)the kids have also been doing mazes and dot-to-dots...
Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 25, 2009
During this break I’ve been looking into handwriting skills. I have a few minutes and thought I’d quickly share what I’ve come across lately. I found an extremely useful 32-page article about handwriting. It’s a handwriting resource for (pre-K and kindergarten) teachers in a Maryland school district. You can find it here: http://www.fcpsteach.org/docs/Handwriting.pdf It has some suggestions for building handwriting skills from a young age (preschool) such as activities that...
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.
