Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
History: Geography Activities / History: Middle Ages
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 4, 2015 · Last modified November 3, 2015
This is a very basic notebook page with a map and photos of Stonehenge. It doesn’t go into a lot of detail, but provides some basic facts about Stonehenge: Stonehenge is a monument located in Wiltshire, England. It is comprised of about 100 huge upright stones placed in a circular layout. While some of the stones probably come from a quarry about 25 miles away, some of the blue stones...
History: American Colonies / History: American History / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 5, 2015 · Last modified September 19, 2023
American Revolution Unit: Worksheets, Review Cards, Lapbook Page, Books, Resources, and More! Our most recent history unit was on the causes and events leading up to the American Revolution. We went into quite a bit of depth on the French and Indian War and how the colonies then became the focus of England’s attention in the post-(French and Indian)-War period as Parliament struggled to cover their expenses and tackle their...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / How to Start Homeschooling / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 2, 2015 · Last modified September 7, 2015
Yesterday was our very first day school. We had such an amazing summer (and more about that in another day or so), but it is also great to be back in the groove again! I started the day with my new morning routine (I’ll talk about that more in another post too!), but it left me organized, energized, and ready to go with the kids! ED, of course, was the...
The past week or so we were away from home… enjoying the tranquility and pre-summer crowds of the Outer Banks in North Carolina. Since my sister homeschools (and thus also has a flexible schedule), it seemed the perfect time to meet up with her family and my folks! Homeschool Graduate: Before I share a couple of pictures… let me brag on my niece (who has been homeschooled K through 12)....
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Random Thoughts / Trips We've Taken
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 6, 2015
Hooray! We’re done with standardized testing!! The kids are really happy! In those hours and hours of sitting by witnessing the kids toil, I have a come up with a bunch of hands-on activities and blog post ideas! Hope to get those written up soon. But in the meantime, I just came on to celebrate! Jumped through that hoop… Now back to our fun stuff… like our Middle Ages Unit, Human...
We have managed to fit in two more learning days on the go! We visited Thomas Jefferson’s home, Monticello, in Virginia. We did the slavery tour and the tour of his home. We had an amazing time… Not only because of the incredible weather, but also because of how much we learned. The Monticello plantation was about 5,000 acres. At any one time, Thomas Jefferson owned around 130 slaves. One thing...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Organizing and Cleaning / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Random Thoughts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published April 10, 2015 · Last modified April 9, 2015
We’ve had such a great week! In early March, the kids were often really testy with one another but ever since our lovely spring break (when my in-laws were here), things have been moving along well! This post actually has nothing to do with the featured image of Starbuck, though she does rule over our homeschool room. She spends a lot of time under the homeschool room couch, but once...
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 / 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...
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...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 15, 2015 · Last modified March 13, 2015
On the weekends, I’ve been trying to share articles about homeschooling (or parenting in general) I’ve found from around the web. Since not everyone is on Facebook, I thought I’d share some of the recent article links here as well: *I shared this post I wrote last March: Why You Shouldn’t Reward Kids for Learning partly because I saw an article about “Grit” in the Washington post (see the next entry!) *Do Your...
Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Random Thoughts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 5, 2015
Don’t tell my kids… but I’m pretty tired…. not with school itself, but with being the mediator. It’s mid-semester for us and I’m not as patient with the kids as I should be… well, or a better way to put that is that the kids are really grating on each other’s nerves and I can’t always nip it in the bud. We’ve had to have talk after talk about treating...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 22, 2015 · Last modified June 30, 2022
Homeschooling in Elementary, Middle School and High School One of the questions I am asked the most is “Where do I start?” “Do you have any tips for me, my child is in x-Grade?” These free guides (Creating a Homeschool Curriculum) might provide a starting point for those of you just starting your homeschool journey and may give you an idea or two if you’ve been at this homeschool thing...
Arts and Crafts / History: Middle Ages / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 17, 2015 · Last modified September 13, 2018
Last week, we combined our study of the Vikings with a new art project — woodburning! We have just started a new unit on the Middle Ages. Last week, we focused on northern Europe and the Vikings/Norsemen. We started by learning the location of the Scandinavian countries. We talked about the “barbarian” invasions of the Roman Empire and read that section in our history book. The spine for our...
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.
