Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Last week, I talked a lot about our civics and government unit. Today, I thought I would briefly mention the American History books the kids have been reading this year. As many of you know, we started off the year with a unit on Native Americans (We shared a number of notebook pages that are free to download for that unit): Native Americans of the Northeast (Part I: Algonquins) Native...
Homeschool Den / Nature / Outdoor Fun / Summer Activities
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 8, 2015
Every spring for years now, I’ve sent the kids out to do a Nature Scavenger Hunt. This year I thought we’d add in something new… an Outdoor Treasure Hunt with the QR Code reader. We’ve been having a lot of fun with these QR Codes and this is a way to get the kids outside and enjoying nature at the same time. How does it work? Well, someone needs to...
Critical Thinking Activities / Games for Thinking and Learning
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 6, 2015 · Last modified April 5, 2015
I have something a little different to share with you today! This past week, we’ve been doing some major re-organization of the homeschool room. I came across an old printout with some creative thinking questions I once compiled. I thought it would be fun to start off the day with something a little different for the kids… some off-the-wall creative thinking questions. I really hope the kids have fun with...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc) / Language Arts - Grammar Spelling Reading Writing Categories / Language Arts - Grammar Worksheets / Language Arts: Spelling / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 3, 2015 · Last modified May 6, 2017
So, what does our family do for our homeschool language arts curriculum? I’ll share what we’ve been using for 1st through 6th grades. Over the past week, I’ve gotten three separate emails and FB messages asking about what we use for language arts — spelling, grammar and literature. It must be that time of year again when we start thinking about our plans for next year. 😉 I’ll start with...
Active Math Games / Homeschool Den / Math General Posts / Math--Addition / Math--Multiplication
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 2, 2015 · Last modified May 15, 2016
Over the past couple of weeks, ED and I have been having a lot of fun with her math and she’s made some really good progress with her subtraction facts and with her skip counting. I thought I would share some of the activities she’s been up to. It had been a while since we pulled out our Fast Track math board game. That definitely infused a lot of energy and enthusiasm...
Holiday: Easter / Math General Posts / Math--Multiplication
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 31, 2015 · Last modified March 26, 2018
My daughter continues to work on the beginnings of multiplication and is practicing skip counting daily. I made these Easter skip counting worksheets for her (she has only worked on 2s thru 6s at this point). These Easter skip counting pages are free to download! 🙂 By the way, I suggest that you print two mazes per page to save on paper. Free Easter Skip Counting Pages 2s thru 6s We...
History: American Colonies / History: American History / History: Civics, Government and Economics / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 30, 2015 · Last modified February 22, 2021
This Civics and Government Unit covers the 3 Branches of Government The Constitution & Bill of Rights The Presidential Cabinet Positions How a Bill becomes Law Civics Review (symbols, landmarks) Federal vs. State Governments and more! We are doing a Civics and Government Unit. I made this packet for the kids because I couldn’t find a homeschool unit that covered everything I wanted to include. Not only are we covering the...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Holiday: Easter
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 25, 2015 · Last modified March 26, 2015
Today I have two free printable Easter games for you. One is a Word Family Game for -at -it -ot words. The other is a math game for practicing number recognition, addition, subtraction or division. Egg Races Math Game: The first is a math game that you can adapt for any math practice as long as the answer is between 4 and 9 — number recognition, addition, subtraction or division. Print out...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool Encouragement
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 24, 2015 · Last modified March 22, 2015
Sometimes homeschooling is a delicate balance of Mom’s energy, the kids’ energy, and all the other things we have going on. It’s not unusual for us to take an abrupt, unscheduled detour along this educational journey of ours! As many of you know, we are studying the Middle Ages this semester. But, with everything else we had going on we stepped away from history for a couple of weeks. (We had...
Holiday: Easter / Science / Science Experiments
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 23, 2015 · Last modified January 24, 2019
Egg-tivities to get egg-cited for Easter!! Lots of Egg Experiments for Kids in this free printable!! Last year around this time we had an egg-cellent time with eggs. I wrote a series of 4 posts sharing all of our activities. At the end of the series, I put together an Egg-speriment Packet. It is 16 pages long and has 13 egg experiments and activities. A few of the things we talked...
A lot of the time I share our latest homeschool activities, but sometimes I like to share a bit about what’s going on for us. 🙂 Despite the high traffic on the blog now, it’s still the place I tend to chronicle our family’s adventures! March is usually a very busy one for our family. A couple of weeks ago, DD had her aerials showcase. Aerials is a neat sport because it...
Science: Cell Unit / Science: Chemistry Unit / Science: Garden Science / Science: Plant Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 20, 2015 · Last modified April 2, 2021
This week we spent a few days talking about photosynthesis. We covered the basic differences between plant and animal cells last week and I wanted to briefly talk about the process of photosynthesis before moving on to our Human Body unit. Some of the things we talked about included as we learned about the process of photosynthesis: parts of the plant, plant cells and the plant organelles, what is needed for...
Homeschool: Organizing and Cleaning / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 17, 2015
It’s that time of year again. We’re trying to schedule in summer camps and family vacations. I work really well with paper calendars for keeping track of things here by my desk. This is the spring-summer calendar I made and just thought I’d share it for anyone else who can use it. 🙂 Free Spring-Summer 2015 Calendar Some of our summer plans? We are hoping to go on another Fossil...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 16, 2015 · Last modified March 15, 2015
Today we’re off from school because I’m on my way to Baltimore — to Johns Hopkins — for a six month follow up after my 6th ear surgery last year!! (Okay, in reality I’ve had about 15 ear surgeries in my lifetime, but six of those were last year!!). I had a terrible year last year which resulted in my becoming deaf in that ear, but it has a good...
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.
