Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Arts and Crafts / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Math General Posts
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 24, 2015
The biggest challenge this week? Just getting going each morning! This past week was our third week back since the break. In some ways, it was my toughest yet. There are some days/weeks when we we dive into our homeschooling with enthusiasm and zeal, but other times it’s hard to get started, though once we do, we generally get things done. This was one of those weeks that was that bit...
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published January 15, 2015 · Last modified April 26, 2025
Our most popular science packets include Earth Science Unit, a Study of Cells, Biology Unit, Chemistry Unit, Digestive System Unit, States of Matter, Simple Machines, Human Body Systems, Skeletal System Unit, Ocean Unit, Physical and Chemical States of Matter, Electricity and Circuits Unit, Layers of the Atmosphere, Magnets & the Magnetosphere, and more. Our science units are mostly under $15.00 and range in length from 20 to well over 150...
Language Arts - Grammar Worksheets
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 3, 2014 · Last modified November 12, 2015
This is quick printable contraction practice printable I made for ED. I used to have some matching cards we used for my other kids, but I misplaced them, so I made this set. It’s fall, so I used squirrels and acorns! 🙂 I made this set for her; she wanted squirrels and acorns. (Perfect time of year for that, right?! We have a couple of squirrels constantly coming up near...
Language Arts - Grammar Worksheets / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 24, 2014 · Last modified January 14, 2015
In this post, I wanted to talk about writing in our homeschool this fall. Last year, we shifted to a writing workshop model. I had a reluctant writer and up until that point, writing was a chore for my son. Well, after switching to a writing workshop… writing became one of his favorite subjects! So, what do I mean by a writing workshop? In brief this means: We have a...
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...
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...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool Encouragement / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published November 26, 2013 · Last modified July 27, 2018
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...
Homeschool Den / Language Arts: Writing
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 29, 2013 · Last modified May 15, 2016
Getting the Writing Workshop Area Ready One of the things that jumped out for me from all the reading I was doing about writing workshops is that it is important to have a space, routine and materials completely ready to go. We had always fit in writing pell-mell whenever it fit in to our homeschool day. I wanted there to be a designated space (both physically and mentally) for our...
Ages 2-6: Theme Time (age 2-4) / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.)
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 21, 2013 · Last modified February 9, 2017
This is a post from several years ago that had its own separate page. At the time the kids were about 18-20 months (or so), 3 years old and 5 years old (I’m not sure exactly when because the page wasn’t dated). We still lived in Australia at the time I wrote this post. A Day in the Life of Our Homeschool Someone asked me what our homeschool schedule looks...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Kindergarten
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 9, 2013 · Last modified December 12, 2016
I had to submit our Notice of Intent to Homeschool and even though I don’t have to go into much detail about our curriculum, I use that as my deadline for roughly mapping out the school year. The kids are in Grades 5, 3 and Kindergarten this year. I pulled out some (but not all) of the resources we’ll be using for a quick photo: Here are some of the...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published December 30, 2012
Wow, it’s the end of 2012… a great time to reflect on the year we’ve had. Here are some of the highlights from this year: our favorite homeschool activities: It’s hard to choose just two, but I guess these are the ones that really stand out for me at the moment… the Black Plague simulation we did. None of us ever made it to our destination!! The kids really loved...
Ages 2-6: Preschool (Age 4) / Freebies / Holiday: Halloween / Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Math General Posts / Math: Preschool Math / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 22, 2012 · Last modified October 19, 2015
Because we’re so busy, I often blog a week or so in advance — then shuffle things around as seems appropriate. But in a way that’s bad because then I feel like I can’t just chit-chat about our homeschooling because there’s a post with a particular theme… hardly fitting for bantering about bad homeschool days or the house-stuff that hasn’t gotten done. So… I’m going to interrupt my own post...
Freebies / Homeschool Den / Language Arts - Grammar Worksheets / Language Arts: Writing / Must Read
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published October 2, 2012 · Last modified May 12, 2016
We tend to switch back and forth between our spelling program and our grammar work. This past week we worked on grammar and I made a few more sheets that paralleled the topics that were covered in our Write Source Skills Book (here’s a link to Grade 2 and Grade 4). If you’re interested you can download the worksheets I made for the kids. They cover the use of apostrophes, quotation...
Homeschool Den / Homeschool: Our Homeschool (what our day is like, curriculum choices, etc.) / Homeschool: Planning and Preparation
by Liesl - Homeschool Den · Published August 28, 2012 · Last modified March 14, 2019
Yesterday I laid out some of the plans we have for this year. For those who are new to my blog I thought you might be interested in looking at some of the plans I had for last year (Fall 2011). Our focus in geography/history last year was on the USA and (some) American history. There was a lot of material that we covered that weren’t in my initial plans/post...
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.
