Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
History: Ancient Egypt / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 6, 2017 · Last modified September 29, 2023
We love hands-on projects and ED had fun at the end of last semester learning about Ancient Egypt. I thought I would share the cool project she made (mostly on her own!). My youngest and I read through the Story of the World, vol. 1 (affiliate link) about the ancient world. ED loved the way this book is written. (She is 8.) At the time, my older two were doing...
History: Africa Unit / History: Slavery and the Civil War / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 10, 2016 · Last modified January 5, 2020
This semester we are doing a unit on Slavery and the Civil War for history. Today I wanted to share some of the books and DVDs we used for this part of our unit. We first talked about the kingdoms of Africa. We began watching the first disc of the documentary, African-Americans: Many Rivers to Cross (affiliate link), which we borrowed from the library. (We stopped there because we hadn’t...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 9, 2016 · Last modified July 10, 2019
This page came about because I’ve gotten so many email and notes from homeschoolers who are feeling lost, overwhelmed, and/or are not sure quite where to start. I hope this post will offer some support and encouragement. Hopefully, you’ll find links to some posts that might give you the boost you need today. First, congratulations taking up homeschooling! I want to say that you’re awesome! All homeschoolers need to high-five...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 13, 2016 · Last modified March 21, 2018
We have so many writing and language arts resources on the blog, I thought it was time to create a tab so our resources are a bit easier to find. Almost all of our grammar pages are currently free!! We have posts in these language arts categories: Writing Workshop – How and Why we started using a homeschool writing workshop. Mini-Lessons about Writing Comma Rules and Practice Pages Other Free...
Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / How to Start Homeschooling / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 10, 2016 · Last modified July 10, 2017
Welcome to Day 3 of the Back to Homeschool Challenge!! Today, let’s tackle the Subject Planning… I don’t know about you, but I really mull things over in the summer. I generally have tentative plans at the end of the year for the new school year, but given some time, I often change course slightly. Do you need to add in a different topic? Last year in history, for example,...
Freebies / History and World Cultures Units
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 23, 2016 · Last modified May 15, 2016
In today’s post, I thought I would re-cap our school year. Looking back, it’s been a really great year! The chart below shares links to some of the history units we covered in our homeschool. As you’ll see below, I made notebook pages and packets to go along with most of the units we covered. 🙂 This year the kids were in Grades 2, 5 and 7. We do our...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 14, 2016 · Last modified September 19, 2023
This is a free printable map of the European countries and their flags. We are talking about the countries of Europe at the moment and I thought the flags would be a fun way for the kids to review what they’ve learned so far. I’ve included a couple of different blank maps of Europe. You can print the maps in either portrait or landscape. Both are available in this PDF....
History: Rensaissance and Reformation / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 17, 2016 · Last modified December 29, 2018
During the past couple of weeks, our family studied the Reformation. We’ve been working through the worksheets and notebook pages on Martin Luther and the Reformation in general. We had already spent a lot of time talking about the Popes (who were patrons of many of the famous Renaissance artists like Michelangelo and Raphael. (See more at this Renaissance post). And, we had already talked a little bit about the...
History: Rensaissance and Reformation / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 24, 2016 · Last modified December 29, 2018
We have continued on with our unit on the Renaissance. Our readings covered Maximilian and Charles V, and talked about the influential people of that period: the Fugger Family, who were the wealthiest banking family outside of Italy, and Albrecht Dürer the famous German artist. We are using The Story of the Renaissance (affiliate link) as our spine for this unit. We read sections aloud together and add in art...
History: Rensaissance and Reformation / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 17, 2016 · Last modified December 29, 2018
Today I want to tell you a little more about our Renaissance Artist Worksheets. We have been continuing our study of the Renaissance period. Our last post shared some of the things we did when we covered the early Renaissance period. The past week or so we talked about three of the famous artists of the Renaissance: da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael. In the last post I mentioned that we...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 29, 2016 · Last modified March 1, 2024
Homeschool History Units I wanted to make a page that will make it easier to see what history resources we have available on our blog. These are some of the history units we have covered so far in our homeschool and the posts I’ve written related to each unit. As many of you know, we *love* hands-on activities and have done lots of creative activities along the way. 🙂 You...
History and World Cultures Units / History: American Colonies / History: American History / History: Civics, Government and Economics / History: Middle Ages / History: Native American Indians Unit / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 30, 2015
What a successful year! As the year draws to a close, I love taking a look at what we’ve accomplished not only in school, but in life in general. I’m not one to make “resolutions” per se, but I do enjoy thinking about what’s to come and seeing just how to make that happen! This year was a *huge* one for my blog. January 5, 2015 was my last official...
Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Books: Children's Literature / Language Arts: Reading
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 17, 2015 · Last modified January 5, 2020
It’s been a while since I’ve talked about books here in our homeschool. I thought I would spend some time highlighting the books my 7-year old has read and loved this fall. This past summer I bought a huge selection of chapter books that were reasonably short (roughly 100 pages or less). Last year she read through 35 of the Magic Tree House books. (affiliate link). Just like my son, she...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / How to Start Homeschooling / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 19, 2015 · Last modified November 17, 2015
This week I’m changing our “Thoughts on Teaching” series up a bit to write about how our homeschool days flow in general. Each day is pretty different from the one before and is usually a result of what we didn’t get to (or got to only minimally) the day before. But I keep a general running tab (mentally if not by checklist!) of what we’re doing in each subject. So...
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.
