Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
We have a wonderful tech team here at Parents. You might have noticed that the categories feature of my blog is now back! Hooray! Ever since I started this blog I have been categorizing things into different units. If you’re doing a study of Ancient Egypt or natural disasters, the human body or the ocean, or just want to look through the dozens and dozens of posts I did when...
Freebies / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Organizing and Cleaning / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 7, 2013 · Last modified December 31, 2014
Not too long ago the categories section of my blog was disabled. I’m trying to get that up and running, but in the meantime I wanted to be sure people could cruise through the various topics we’ve done while planning for the fall. I’m sure homeschoolers all around the country are gearing up for the new school year! Update: We have just moved to homeschoolden.com… I have not yet provided the...
Homeschool Den / Must Read / Trips We've Taken
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 29, 2013 · Last modified March 26, 2016
As you probably gather from yesterday’s post 10 Reasons Why Time Off is Important, our family was on holiday last week at the beach. There are so many things to do at the Outer Banks (Southern Shores/Kitty Hawk/Nags Head area), I thought I would share some of the things our family has done there. I know it’s a popular family destination. Here are some things your family might enjoy in...
History: Native American Indians Unit / Homeschool Den / Must Read / Nature / Outdoor Fun
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 14, 2012 · Last modified December 16, 2018
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about finding an ‘arrowhead‘ (really a hafted knife point) in the woods right behind our house. Yesterday morning we had the county archaeologist over to survey the site where we found the hafted knife. He examined it closely and said it was most likely a Piscataway Stemmed Point. We then took him into the woods to show him the site where it...
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 8, 2012
This is the fifth post in a series 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. I talked about how I assess our homeschooling philosophy: Am I happy with *how* we are homeschooling? I talked a lot about...
Freebies / History: American History / History: American West Unit / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 20, 2012 · Last modified September 19, 2017
As I mentioned yesterday, we’ve been reading a book about a girl who travels West on the Oregon Trail with a group of other families. Since we’ve been reading for quite some time now, I thought we could jump right in and play the Oregon Trail File Folder Game I found at File Folder Fun. I asked them a couple of questions to prepare to play the game in another day...
History: American History / History: American West Unit / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 19, 2012 · Last modified August 4, 2018
We’ve been studying the American West this semester. The kids and I have been thoroughly engrossed in a wonderful book called Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie: The Oregon Trail Diary of Hattie Campbell, 1847 (Dear America Series) (Affiliate link). It’s the story of a girl making her way West along the Oregon Trail with her family. At one point the pioneers have to struggle up and then back down a...
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...
History: Ancient Aztecs, Incas and Mayans / History: Native American Indians Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 14, 2011 · Last modified April 3, 2015
In our slow, but steady move through history we have talked about nomads, ancient Egypt, ancient China, ancient Greece and Rome and then up into the Middle Ages. From here we’re going to turn to the Americas. Our next history unit study will be on Native Americans. I hope to incorporate some good literature books into our studies over the next few months (let me know if you have good...
Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 12, 2011
I developed this blog in large part for me. It helps me keep a record of what we’ve done and it also helps me stay organized and keep track of websites where I’ve gotten activity ideas and printables. You should see my drafts!! Whenever I’m cruising around trying to find information and activities for new units I create a “draft” and link lots of the websites I come across. I...
Someone asked me a couple of days ago if I have any “girl time.” (And she obviously meant for *me*!) I don’t have too much in the way of outlets yet, but am getting a lot of pleasure out of working on the house and the yard. The moving in process is now going forward at glacial speeds (as the kids take up a lot of my time and energy...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 16, 2023
Hi! How do you know what to teach? You and the kids get to decide! This is the final email in this series. A few days ago, I talked about planning in a general way. I shared our free curriculum resource guides as well as the free printable Homeschool Science Unit Checklist for Elementary and Middle School and a similar Similarly, this history checklist might help you choose the time...
With spring right around the corner, I wanted to highlight some spring printables we have available on the blog and a few others from around the web! 🙂 Free Spring Skip Counting Mazes for practicing the 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s and 10s: Here is our Free Egg-Speriment Packet! Egg-Experiment-Packet-Hands-On-Science Learn about the Parts of the Seed/Parts of a Flower with our Botany Packet: FREE Spring Animals Packet: I made...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Homeschool: Useful Resources (websites books etc) / Homeschooling in the News / How to Start Homeschooling / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 5, 2019
As people begin to look into homeschooling, they want to find out some basics: How many homeschoolers are there? What are the benefits and challenges of homeschooling? Will my child be able to get into college? How will my kids do if they haven’t been to a formal school? What about socialization? Will they have enough friends? Let’s dig in to some of these common homeschool questions! How many homeschoolers...
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.
