Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 9, 2014 · Last modified April 16, 2015
Would you believe there is a 10,000 acre safari in Ohio? We took the kids there on our vacation and they were absolutely THRILLED!! We went on the open-air safari, not the private one you see in the picture below, but we still got up close and personal with a number of animals! The Wilds is located about an hour west of Columbus and is an affiliate of the Columbus...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 8, 2014 · Last modified September 9, 2023
Last week ED I printed out the daily calendar page I made for her last fall. She filled one out each morning as she needs some review on some of the spellings on the days of the week and we needed to review how to read a thermometer. I printed it out on the back of her daily checklist (You can grab our free homeschool planner with these daily checklists...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 4, 2014 · Last modified July 9, 2017
With all of my health problems last year, we weren’t able to get away much at all. At the last minute, we decided to throw our camping gear in the car and head out for some adventures! We had a wonderful mix of camping, nature, education and fun. We unplugged for the week… and headed off!! Our first destination was West Virginia. You may have heard of John Brown, who...
This week I’m going to hit a major milestone since joining the Parents.com team… two million hits on my blog…. one million in just the past nine months. I feel incredibly grateful to be a part of such a wonderful team and love having the blog to share our family’s homeschool journey. Ours is certainly not the best/ideal/only way to homeschool, but I enjoy sharing how we meander through each...
History: Geography Activities / How to Start Homeschooling / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 12, 2014 · Last modified September 22, 2023
There are so many fun things you can do with your kids to help them gain an understanding of the geography of our amazing world! Here are some of the geography activities we use in our homeschool. Over the years we have made maps… with sand, dirt and grass seed like our Nile River Valley Out of clay, like our Ancient Greece (and Mediterranean Sea) map (Ancient Greece Geography Project, Ancient Greece...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / How to Start Homeschooling / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 11, 2014 · Last modified February 22, 2015
When we first started homeschooling, I read The Well Trained Mind. The thought of covering history in four year cycles sounded like a wonderful way to approach history. After all, the kids would build on their former knowledge… learning about the ancient world several times, but going into more depth each time round. History was broken into these four year cycles: Ancients Middle Ages and Early Renaissance Late Renaissance/Early Modern...
Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Books: Children's Literature / Summer Activities
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 16, 2014 · Last modified January 1, 2016
I was recently asked if we planned to homeschool throughout the summer. We often start back to school a bit earlier in August than our public school friends, but our family has decided that we need most of the summer off… at least from our more formal approach to school. For one thing, the majority of the kids’ friends have “off” during the summer, so we set up more playdates...
Homeschool: Planning and Preparation
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 9, 2014 · Last modified June 18, 2020
The end of the school year is coming up quickly. I usually take some time to reflect how the year went for our family. We’ll talk about some of the things we covered this year… everything from really diving into the Writing Workshop for the first time to our huge units on India, Gandhi, the Civil Rights Movement and China… plus our science units on Simple Machines, Weather, Water… our adventures...
History: American History / Holiday: Memorial Day
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 26, 2014
Memorial Day was formerly known as Decoration Day and started after the Civil War to commemorate the fallen Union Soldiers. By the 20th century Memorial Day was extended to honor all Americans who have died in wars. A couple of years ago, I had a long conversation with my Dad and extended family about the members of our family who have served in the U.S. military. As I asked for...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool and Toddler Activities / Ages 2-6: Preschool at Home / Ages 2-6: Preschool for ED - Fall 2011 (age 3 1/2) / History: Geography Activities / Homeschool Den / Montessori (general info)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 8, 2014 · Last modified March 18, 2018
There are so many fun things you can do with your preschooler (or elementary kids) to help them gain an understanding of the geography of our amazing world! You can make all kinds of maps to enhance your preschooler’s knowledge of the world. Over the years we have made maps… with sand, dirt and grass seed like our Nile River Valley Out of clay, like our Ancient Greece (and Mediterranean...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Ages 2-6: Preschool at Home / History: Geography Activities / Homeschool Den / Kindergarten / Montessori (general info)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 19, 2014 · Last modified October 16, 2022
World Animal Packet: This 70+ page packet helps kids learn about animals on every continent! It includes Montessori 3-Part Cards, Activity Sheets for every continent, printable continent cards, a world animal game, world animal pin map activity, and more! The last two weeks I shared some of ED’s animal-related activities. She looked closely at the vertebrate-invertebrate groups and we talked a lot about the characteristics of the animals of the...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Homeschool Den / Montessori (general info) / Science / Science: Vertebrates - Invertebrates
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 12, 2014 · Last modified November 2, 2022
Animals and their Characteristics – The 5 Animal Groups These free pages are down below! Last week my daughter worked on vertebrates and invertebrates. From there she started working on the 5 animal groups. I also wanted to go over the characteristics of the various vertebrate animal groups with her. As she sorted the animal groups we talked about some of the characteristics of each group… fish and amphibians lay...
Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 27, 2014 · Last modified March 18, 2016
Writing Workshop Mini-Lesson #2: Make the Story Come Alive with Details; Show the reader what happened; Create images in the reader’s mind You’ve set up a good writing space, have your supplies – pencils, journals, resource materials. Now what?!! This is the second in a series of 5 posts with lesson ideas to help young writers get started on their writing journey. Be sure to read the introduction to this series in last Monday’s...
History: Civil Rights Movement / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 3, 2014 · Last modified March 3, 2016
Every year since 1976, every U.S. president has designated February as black history month. We have just about finished up our unit on the Civil Rights Movement and I have a couple more posts to share with you. Last week, we learned about the challenges young blacks faced when they attended all-white schools in the late 1950s and early 1960s. We first learned about the Little Rock Nine. Then, the...
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.
