Welcome! If you are on this page, then you are considering homeschooling as an option for your child/children or have already started! I’m so excited for you! Our family has been homeschooling basically from the start. We found that homeschooling works extremely well for our family. We love all the hands-on projects we can do and I love how I can tailor each of the kids’ education to exactly what they need. But let me warn you, the process isn’t always smooth!! There are times when we have bumps in the road, tears (umm… yup!), and struggles. Our house teeters from almost clean to mostly disaster. Maybe not that bad, but it’s tough since we’re always here… unless we’re out of the house exploring the world (which is often)! All kidding aside, I love, love, love being on this homeschool journey — and I hope you find some helpful resources here!
I started this blog when the kids were 17-months, almost 3 and 5… so you’ll find activities from the toddler years right up through early middle school. I have always kept an extensive CATEGORY list… so if you’re thinking of studying somethings (say space or animal habitats or Ancient Egypt)… check through our category list and you’ll probably find some of our activities and worksheets. I’ve created a lot of materials for the kids from grammar and math sheets to science and history packets. Most things are free; a few things are for sale in our store to help keep the blog running and pay for our expenses as we continue along this journey. (If you buy something from us– THANK YOU so much!!) 🙂
Back to the topic at hand… I frequently get asked, “How do I get started homeschooling?” This past summer I wrote a very long series to try to answer some of the questions that might come up–including the baffling dilemma… “How do I know *what* to teach the kids?” and “How do I find homeschool curriculums?” I have tried to gather all these posts and link them in one place so you can pick and choose the topics/questions you might have. If you have any other questions I might not have addressed in this series, feel free to leave me a note over on our Homeschool Den Facebook page and I’ll try to answer them.
Getting Started with Homeschooling. And answering some basic questions about homeschooling:
- How to Start Homeschooling
- What are Some of the Benefits and Challenges of Homeschooling?
- Creating Daily Homeschool Procedures and Routines
- How and Why Did We Get Started Homeschooling?
- How many homeschoolers are there in the USA?
- Advice to New Homeschoolers
- 11-year Old Shares Her Thoughts About Homeschooling
- How Long Will We Keep Homeschooling? (Homeschooling Through High School)
- Back to (Home)School Shopping List
- What Happens in a Homeschool Day — Our Week or 2 in Review (K, Gr. 3, Gr. 5) — A glimpse into our homeschool that helps give you a flavor of what our homeschool routine looked like.
- What We’ve Been Up to Lately (Grades 1, 4, 6)
- How to Get Started Homeschooling with Unit Studies
- What About the Social Aspects of Homeschooling? – This post includes a long list of activities homeschooled kids can get involved in.
- Homeschool Questions Answered: Why do people homeschool?
- Homeschool Encouragment: To Homeschool You Need…
- Time and the Busy Parent
- How to Start Homeschooling After the Holidays
If you are new to our blog, you might want to check out these free resource guides, which I put together to help answer questions like… Where do I start? How do I know what to teach? What units did you kids do when they were in __ Grade?
Creating Your Own Homeschool Curriculum: These are some resources I made that might be helpful as you create your own homeschool plans. These are somewhere between 30 and 50 pages and are FREE to download:
This post has a wide range of different hands-on activity ideas and teaching strategies that might inspire you in your homeschooling! You can grab a free copy of the teaching strategies printable here:
Are you a visual person? Be sure to visit this post with dozens and dozens of hands-on teaching ideas in pictures! Visit the Ultimate Hands-On Homeschooling Guide for some fresh inspiration!!
- How Do You Know What to Teach the Kids: Finding a Homeschool Curriculum
- Homeschool Planning and Schedules: From the Big Picture down to the Daily Schedule – Science and History Checklist of units my kids will study ages 4-12
- Homeschool Science Curriculum Options – Different homeschool science curriculums that are for sale
- Creating a Homeschool Science Curriculum – Elementary — The science units we plan to cover K-8.
- Creating a Homeschool Science Curriculum – Ages 4-6
- Science Activities for Ages 4-6
- Preschool Science at Home – A post with links to dozens of our hands-on science activities (ages 3-6 or so)
- Finding a Language Arts Curriculum (writing, grammar)
- Writing Workshop: What We’re Doing for Writing this Fall (2014) — I just have to add again, that we LOVE, LOVE the writing workshop format. I have a ton of posts on this because it has TRANSFORMED writing — from a drag for my reluctant writer, to one of his *favorite* subjects!!
- Creating a Homeschool Writing Workshop — This is the first in a long series (of about 10 or 12 posts) about how our homeschool writing workshop works.
Math:
- Math Curriculums & Going Beyond the Text – This post includes 15+ ideas for making math engaging and fun!
- Math Worksheets, Game Boards, Lapbook and More – Various worksheets and resources I’ve made for my kids that include themes (that my kids like) such as Pokemon, Pete the Cat, etc.
- PreAlgebra Curriculums and Resources and this one PreAlgebra Resources
- Preschool at Home: Activities you can do with your 2-4 Year Olds, Fine Motor Skills
- Preschool at Home: Learning Letters
- Preschool at Home: Alphabet Activities
- Preschool at Home: Handwriting
- Preschool at Home: Science for 2-5 Year Olds and up!
- Preschool Montessori: Vertebrate and Invertebrate Study and Free Cards
- Preschool at Home: A Few Math Ideas for the 2 1/2-3 year old crowd
- Preschool Math Activities (K4) Montessori Math and More
- Preschool at Home: Lapbooks
- You might also be interested in the post: Homeschool Preschool Year in Review which was a recap of many of our preschool activities this past year.
- Preschool Geography: Activities for learning about where we live in the world, Montessori world map work and more
- Preschool Geography: Maps and More
- The Seven Continents and World Landmarks
- Various Free Montessori 3-Part Cards
- If your child knows their letter sounds, they may be ready to learn to read. Visit this post, Teach Your Child to Read, for fun ideas that help your child learn to read!
- Oh — and one last resource: You might like this huge printable list that has 3 single-spaced pages of ideas to do with your tot or preschooler
Some of our favorite units and posts:
- Native Americans – This past fall we studied many Native American tribes… and did a number of fun crafts
- Simple Machines – We did TONS of hands-on activities
- China Unit – We spent an entire semester studying everything from Ancient China to Genghis Khan, Marco Polo and beyond!
- Civil Right Movement – We learned so much from the books we read and movies we watched.
- Our study of Rocks and Minerals
- Africa Unit — We spent months exploring the wonders of Africa — from the geography to the ancient world including Ancient Egypt to transatlantic slave trade.
- Digestive System – This link takes you straight to some of our (gross!) activities!!
- We’ve learned so much about the World Religions. I’ve made the kids a lot of notebooking pages.
- And we’ve had so much fun with math!
- We also do basic grammar — like these sheets on apostrophes, quotation marks, underlining etc.
- Earth Science has been a blast — We have tons of hands-on activities yet to share with you on volcanoes, earthquakes and more!! (as of mid-Jan. 2015, that is)
