Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Engineering - STEM Activities / Engineering Challenges / Homeschool Den / Science: Electricity and Circuits Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 14, 2016 · Last modified March 19, 2023
Our study of electricity and circuits was electrifying!! Seriously, we all learned SO much in this unit and did over a dozen hands-on projects! If your kids love STEM projects, you may enjoy our 30-page Electricity and Circuits Packet. My kids are currently 8, 11 and 13 and they couldn’t wait to dive into science each day while we were doing this unit! Some of the topics and terms we...
hands-on science / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Electricity and Circuits Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 2, 2016 · Last modified March 19, 2023
As many of you know, we are doing an electricity and circuits unit. Today I thought I would share some of the hands-on activities we did as we started off this unit! We started off the year with a unit on the States of Matter. Then we went on to talk about the Physical and Chemical Properties of Matter. We touched on conductivity (and insulators) briefly as physical properties, but...
Critical Thinking Activities / Homeschool Den / Science / Science Experiments / Science: Electricity and Circuits Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 24, 2016 · Last modified March 19, 2023
In this part of our Electricity and Circuits units, we had a lot of fun with Paper Circuits!! If you’ve been a reader for a while, you know how much we *LOVE* hands-on science and engineering! We have been having such a great time with our electricity and circuits unit that I just had to come on briefly to share a snippet of what we’ve been doing. (Normally, I wait...
Homeschool Den / How to Start Homeschooling / Kindergarten / Science / Science Experiments / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 4, 2016 · Last modified September 29, 2016
A reader sent me an email asking about homeschool science for her daughter who is in kindergarten this year. She said she was feeling overwhelmed about science and wondered where/how to start. She said she hadn’t done any science yet and wondered if the States of Matter unit was a good place to start. I wrote her back and shared the free printable resource/checklist I made last year about some...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Starting to Homeschool
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 3, 2016
Over the weekend I wrote a post about what I might do if I were starting all over again with toddlers and preschoolers in-tow (Homeschooling Multiple Ages). In today’s post, I wanted to share what our routine looks like these days. I have two kids in middle school (ie. grades 6 and 8) and one in grade 3. Our homeschool is considerably more structured than it used to be. When...
Homeschool Den / Science: Chemistry Unit / Science: States of Matter Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 27, 2016 · Last modified March 20, 2023
Our 50+ page packet on the three states of matter – solids, liquids, gases and changing states of matter includes worksheets, matching activities, vocabulary building pages and interactive notebook pages as well as hands-on activity ideas. We began the unit by talking about the characteristics of solids, liquids and gases. We also went into a lot of detail on the changing states of matter covering those six changes (melting, freezing,...
Homeschool Den / Science: Chemistry Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 26, 2016 · Last modified March 19, 2023
Sublimation and Deposition Activities – Making Chemistry Fun! This fall we’ve been studying the states of matter and changes of matter. Today I’m going to share some of our activities as we talked about the changes in states of matter from solid to gas–sublimation and from gas to solid–deposition. It was a day of Dry Ice FUN!! 🙂 While most kids know freezing, melting and evaporation sublimation and deposition are...
Homeschool Den / Science Experiments / Science: Chemistry Unit
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 12, 2016 · Last modified March 19, 2023
In this part of our States of Matter unit we talked about some of the properties of liquids. A few days ago, I shared some of activities as we discussed gases. You’ll find that here: States of Matter-Hands-On Activities about Gases. We continued to talk about the structure of matter. Liquids have a definite volume, but no definite shape. Not only did we talk about some of the characteristics of...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published September 7, 2016 · Last modified March 19, 2023
We started our chemistry unit this year with a study of the States of Matter – Solids, Liquids and Gases. Today, I’m going to share four hands-on activities we did about air. We started the unit with a discussion of the states of matter: solids, liquids and gases. The kids had to brainstorm as many examples as they could in two minutes. Then they shared their examples. I then asked...
Happy Labor Day! This is a post you definitely don’t want to miss. It has links to dozens of freebies in science, history, language arts, math, PreK, German and Spanish!! Today is a holiday that honors the hard work of men and women across America. This blog has been my labor of love for more than seven years! It started as a way for me to document our homeschool journey...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 30, 2016
Today was our first official day of school. After all the planning I did this summer, it was fabulous to finally just jump in and start off the year!! This year we’ve set up a more structured schedule for ourselves… at least to start with. Other years, we covered all of our subjects, but each day was different. This year we’ve decided (together, this wasn’t just my idea) to have...
Homeschool Den / Science / Science Experiments / Science Units
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 22, 2016 · Last modified June 26, 2020
The last couple of weeks, we had our Back to School Challenge, but I didn’t write specifically about our upcoming plans. In today’s post, I’m going to talk about our plans for science this year. The kids are going into grades 3, 6, and 8. When planning out for the new year, I think back over the units we’ve covered the past few years. I try to make sure that...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 11, 2016 · Last modified July 30, 2019
I love this time of year… fresh pencils, new binders, and colorful fun writing journals. And apparently I’ve given my joy and excitement of office supplies to my kids. Today your challenge is two-fold… check to see what you need, but being careful not to OVERSHOP!!! This is a voice of experience saying this!! 🙂 One year we wound up with so many glue sticks we had to donate a...
Engineering - STEM Activities / Homeschool Den / Summer Activities
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published June 6, 2016 · Last modified May 6, 2016
Here are some fun summer activities you might enjoy doing with your kids this summer! Today’s post highlights some fun engineering, science and math activities you can do this summer! Summer Fun: Science, Engineering, and Math Ideas Egg Drop Challenge: Give the kids various supplies (cups, paper bags, yarn, scissors, hole punch, tape, and some coins). Have them design a parachute that will safely let an egg drop to 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.
