Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Our approach to Kindergarten has changed a lot over the course of this year. We had to add in curriculum and change things up as ED grew and matured this year. ED turned six in February and she was demanding more work… and work that looked more like what her brother and sister were doing. She is such a different student than my oldest! So here are some of the...
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...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 9, 2014 · Last modified May 18, 2015
The past couple of weeks have flown by. I wanted to write up a quick post to mention some of the things that are going well for us at the moment. It’s hard to believe that we’ll be wrapping up another school year in four or five weeks! Here’s what we’ve been up to the past few weeks: Language Arts: In order to fulfill the requirements of our state, the...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Organizing and Cleaning / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 5, 2014 · Last modified July 4, 2021
Actually, there is no such thing as homeschool furniture or purchases since everybody’s home is unique and everyone has their own style! But that being said, there are a few purchases I’ve made in the past six months that I really love and I wanted to share. Book Display Shelves: We have all kinds of book displays, but I wanted one that looked “nice” and would display the writing books...
Homeschool Den / Nature / Outdoor Fun
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published May 2, 2014 · Last modified February 19, 2017
Like much of the east coast, we had a huge amount of rain on Wednesday. We had just finished our writing workshop, when ED looked out the window and saw that our tiny creek was teeming with water. The kids rushed to get their swim suits on, I got on my big rubber boots and we went down to check things out. The little trickle of our creek was impressive!...
History: American History / Language Arts: Writing / WWII
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 21, 2014 · Last modified February 2, 2021
I received several emails and a message from people interested in the WWII Portfolio Project I made for LD. So, here it is! My son is doing some research work on WWII. Except for reading some novels last year (like Number the Stars), we have not covered this topic at all… He has been doing quite a bit of reading and has watched a video before jumping into the project ideas...
Language Arts: Writing / Science: Biology Unit / Science: Biomes; Animal Habitats
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published March 17, 2014 · Last modified September 12, 2017
The kids are starting on another independent research project. Last semester the kids did a biography research project, but this semester they are doing a portfolio project. That’s just a fancy way of saying… a bit of this and a bit of that. They’ll do both non-fiction and fiction writing selections, art projects, geography and habitat projects. And they’ll also watch a number of videos and/or movies. You’ll get a...
This note made me choke up the other day. ED brought it along with breakfast one morning when I had fallen back asleep on the couch: This blog has been an incredible outlet for me the past couple of months because I have had some debilitating medical problems — all ear related. I’ve really tried not to pour out my woes too much on the blog, but life has been...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 20, 2014 · Last modified January 28, 2018
One thing about homeschoolers is that each family has its own style. Some people have quite a structure/routine to their homeschool; some people unschool and support and follow the passions and interests of their kids. Our days are fairly loose, but we follow fairly traditional subjects. Homeschoolers often fall into different categories… Charlotte Mason, Montessori, Classical, or use online-curriculums. I would say we are eclectic, hands-on homeschoolers — meaning we...
Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Writing / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published February 17, 2014 · Last modified January 30, 2024
How do you help a child who throws his hands up and declares he can’t write, refuses to write, only writes “I suck at writing” or prose of that sort? Well, it has been a long hard journey for my son (10), but things have started to turn around this year and I wanted to share how we’ve made it over that hump… most of the time. *Have a space where...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 28, 2014 · Last modified April 30, 2016
I can’t say enough about Kathy over at Art Projects for Kids and the amazing lessons she shares on her blog. We have been benefiting from her free lessons for years! With everything else that has been going on for me the last few months, it’s been wonderful to have this resource helping to inspire my kids. We have an ever-growing notebook of lessons that the kids flip through and...
Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Writing / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 27, 2014 · Last modified January 30, 2024
Last semester, the kids worked on their first mini-research paper. They hadn’t done a project like this before, so I took them step-by-step through the process of finding books and Internet resources, creating a bibliography, taking notes and writing a paper. They had a “due date” and I graded their paper and gave them feedback on what they could do better next time. I wanted them to have the experience...
Freebies / History: Civics, Government and Economics / History: Civil Rights Movement / Homeschool Den
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 10, 2014 · Last modified March 3, 2016
Yesterday I shared the Civil Rights books we’ll be using in our Civil Rights Movement unit. Before we go into a lot of depth about the events of the 1950s and 1960s, I wanted to make sure the kids really understood some of the history leading up to this period. I created a photo timeline of events to help my kids review (and/or understand) the events leading to the Civil...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 2, 2014
Over the holidays I spent a lot of time away from the computer (blogging, that is), but I did pull together plans for the new semester. Here’s what’s on the agenda: Science: We’ll be starting an earth science unit on weather, wind and water. We’ll be starting with an overview of the Earth’s 4 systems and then will learn about the atmosphere before continuing on to wind, weather, etc. daily...
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.
