Homeschool Den

Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!

Welcome to the Homeschool Den! Check out our latest packets at Our Store (click here!)! New to our website? Click here! Check out our packets and bundles at these pages: Earth and Physical Science Page; Human Body Systems; Zoology/Animal Units; Biology Units; Chemistry Units; History Units; Multiplication/Division 2s thru 12s ; Spelling Games and Activities; Grammar worksheets

Post Thanksgiving Thoughts (Eating, Shopping, Stretching, Books I’m Reading and More) 0

Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Random Thoughts

Post Thanksgiving Thoughts (Eating, Shopping, Stretching, Books I’m Reading and More)

I hope everyone had a wonderful, safe Thanksgiving holiday.  Life seemed to charge forward at break-neck speed and suddenly it was Thursday — Thanksgiving. We hadn’t even bought a turkey!!  Since we didn’t have any extended family coming over (and the turkey was frozen solid!!!), we decided to have shrimp and veggies and a pumpkin pie on Thursday. Then we made the full spread on Friday (turkey, sweet potatoes, homemade...

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Freebies / Homeschool Den / Math General Posts / Must Read

Math Should Never Be Boring! More Math Brain-Teasers (Free Printable)

Yesterday, I mentioned that we’ve added a new portion to our math day. For much of the fall, the kids were simply doing math problems from their math book and they were complaining that math was B*O*R*I*N*G.  What? Oh NO!!  It was true, though, with everything else going on they were doing straight-forward stuff; you know fraction problems like this… or long division… or a good meaty problem like 5789...

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Homeschool Den / Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation

What Happens in a Homeschool Day? Our Week (or 2) in Review (K, Grade 3, Grade 5)

I thought I would put a post together that helps give a flavor of what our daily homeschooling routine looks like. So many of my posts are compilations of our activities, but they don’t actually show what happens day-to-day.  It’s about time to do that again (and I enjoy reading these posts later as the kids get older!) We have finally gotten back to a relatively normal schedule. (If you...

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Math General Posts

Brain-Teaser for You and the Kids!

Here’s a math puzzle for your and your kids. Three match sticks are laid out in front of you. Moving just two match sticks, make six.  I’ll share the answer in another day or so and explain why I’m asking!! 🙂 Happy puzzling! There’s another puzzle over at my Homeschool Den Facebook page if you like this sort of challenge! Later: The solution is here at More Math Brain-Teasers (Free...

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Homeschool Den / Recipes

Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe — Family Favorite!

  Growing up, my family didn’t buy cookies at the grocery store, we always baked them at home. I love to bake and have been making cookies since I was little. By the time my sister went off to college (and I was in 7th grade), I took over the weekly task of baking cookies for my family’s lunches.  We have some pretty great family recipes for shortbread cookies, peanut...

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Critical Thinking Activities / Family Meeting / Games for Thinking and Learning / Homeschool Den

Family Games Night (A Review of Several Games)

It has been WAAaay too long since we had a family games night. For a while we did really well holding a family meeting once a month or so (see this post-Holding a Family Meeting) and this post (Our Monthly Family Meeting).  Last weekend, though, everyone was home (no sleep-overs, no sporting events!) and so we gathered together to play a bunch of games! Fun! This was the first time we...

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Holiday: Thanksgiving / Kindergarten Math / Math General Posts / Math--Addition

Thanksgiving Math – Free Basic Addition and Number Family Sheets

Can you believe Thanksgiving is almost here?! Here is another set of Thanksgiving-themed math sheets I made for my Kindergartner.  She is starting to work on number families and continues to work on very basic addition. If you are interested you can download the free Thanksgiving Number Family and Basic Addition Sheets here. It is 7 pages; Make 6 through Make 10 pages and two turkey-feather addition matching sheets. We’ll...

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Homeschool Den / Science / Science: Simple Machines Unit

Our Favorite Simple Machines Activities– Pulleys (and Wheel and Axle)

The last day of our Simple Machines unit was probably our favorite. We spent hours and hours making and toying with different ways of making pulleys and wheel-n-axles! We started (as always) by reading a couple of books.  We did an activity to show investigate which way of looping the rope made it easier/harder to pull the broom-handles together: The kids really enjoyed Pull, Lift, and Lower: A Book About...

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Freebies / Holiday: Thanksgiving / Homeschool Den / Kindergarten Math / Math General Posts / Math--Multiplication / Math: Preschool Math

Thanksgiving Skip Counting Mazes 2s, 3s, 5s (Free)

Last week my daughter did several skip counting mazes and she asked for more. I whipped a few new sheets together for her… the turkey has to find his lost hat (and not wind up as dinner!). You can move in any direction including diagonally.  If you are interested you can download them and use them with your kids as well!  Enjoy! Thanksgiving Skip Counting Practice 2s 3s 5s If...

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Homeschool Den / Recipes

Middle Eastern Lentil Soup (Crock-pot Recipe)

Life is so busy in the evenings as I drive the kids where they need to be for their sports, scouts and play dates that I rely on my crockpot a lot.  This is a wonderful soup with a tangy flavor that my kids all like as well:   1 1/2 -2 cups dry lentils — soaked in water for 1 1/2 hours, then rinsed prior to adding to the...

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Freebies / History: India Unit / History: World Religions / Homeschool Den

Buddhism Learning Pack

This semester we are studying India. Back in September I shared the huge India Unit packet I made. We’ve gone through most of that packet and have done a lot of the readings I mentioned in that post. Then while I was recovering from my surgery the kids and my mother-in-law read lots and lots of children’s books about the various Hindu gods and goddesses (books are listed in this...

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Ages 2-6: Fall Theme / Freebies / Holiday: Thanksgiving / Homeschool Den / Kindergarten Math / Math General Posts / Math--Addition / Math--Fractions / Math--Multiplication

Fall and Thanksgiving Math Packs and Games (Free)

I’m always SO grateful for the educators who share their materials for free!  I was looking for some Thanksgiving themed math materials for my kids  and came across a number of free games and printables (most are from TeachersPayTeachers which you need to register (free) to be able to download). We have taken a number of pages for ED’s kindergarten math from Royal Baloo’s Thanksgiving Math Pack Use a hole...

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Homeschool Den / Kindergarten / Science / Science: Simple Machines Unit

Simple Machines Unit: Screw Hands-On Activities

We started with… a plain old screw!! The kids spent time trying to screw it into an old board:   We have been reading the book, Archimedes and the Door of Science along with this unit. What a terrific book and what a remarkable man Archimedes was!  The book talks about the Archimedes screw as well as lots of other topics — astronomy, math, geometry and more. We loved the...

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Homeschool Den / Kindergarten Math / Math General Posts / Math--Addition

Kindergarten Math (addition games/place value activities)

It has been a while since I talked about what ED is doing for math.  Kindergarten math for ED has included a smorgasbord of materials. She spent the first month or so really working on her doubling math facts (1+1 through 9+9). She has those down now. Although we have a couple of math (homeschool) curriculums (Singapore Grade 1 and Saxon Grade 1) for whatever reason, neither of those really...