Memorial Day Lapbook

We made this Memorial Day lapbook two years ago. We love making lapbooks because they are a great keepsake and review. We will be looking over this lapbook again this week.

The 12 minibooks, created by Lilliput Station, are available for $5 at CurrClick. We enjoyed putting together this lapbook and learned a lot in the process.

Jesus Death, Burial & Resurrection Lapbook

Next week, we will be doing a lapbook by A Journey Through Learning called Jesus Death, Burial & Resurrection. I have not used any of their products yet, but I am very excited about this study. I actually went ahead and bought 3 of their studies as they are having a great sale over at CurrClick. You might want to check it out!

Over at their site, they have a free Greatest Inventors study (click on "Free Products" and you can download either the lapbook or unit study version) that you can download. We have it and I plan on doing it soon!

Fall Lapbooks!!!

I was actually looking for some fun math activities for this fall season when I came across this free Pumpkin Lapbook from Melissa Telling at Lilliput Station. I'm tempted to use it even though it's probably too young for Alex. But, if you have some young elementary kids, this looks like a great fall project!

I think we'll be using the homeschoolshare's Stellaluna Unit instead. We'll also be doing lots of fun math games, etc, from mathwire.

Have fun learning!

Memorial Day Lapbook

I know it is a little late, but we completed a Memorial Day lapbook today. It was created by the 8-year-old daughter at Lilliput Station! And, it was quite good. Now, my daughter would like to create her own lapbook, too.

We both learned a lot about the history of Memorial Day and things related to Memorial Day. One of my favorite activities with Alexandra was learning about the song "taps." We watched several videos online.

For reference, we mainly used the True Book: Memorial Day by Ditchfield and we looked up other facts online. We also used cardstock instead of a file folder this time, and we both really liked the look.

The Four Seasons... and Memorial Day

(Above video: "Winter" from "The Four Seasons" - I know I'm more familiar with "Spring", but this piece is lovely! And, I love the pan flute! What a seldom-seen instrument.)

I love what Melissa at In the Sparrow's Nest is doing for spring and the four seasons. She is using the book Nature's Paintbox which depicts each of the four seasons in a different medium. She is using those mediums to make their own pieces of art. They did a GREAT job with spring!

Along with that, she mentioned Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons." I commented on her blog that we might start studying Vivaldi & The Four Seasons. We have a piano book I picked up a month or so ago called Antonio Vivaldi: The Four Seasons in an easy arrangement for piano. But, it isn't "that" easy. :-) My daughter's been playing since August and she couldn't play it. But, I've played for about many years, and I'll do just fine. It has pictures and poems and the piano music.

After listening to a sample at Amazon, we requested Classical Kids "Vivaldi's Ring of Mystery" from the library. We also requested "I, Vivaldi" by Shefelman. And, we plan on using The Four Seasons at Classics for Kids, which Melissa also recommended.

I also have Beethoven's Wig 2 which has the "Spring" piece from The Four Seasons. I hear it and in my head I hear, "It's spring, let us sing, Vivaldi!" OK, we really need to get that CD out tomorrow. (Oh, and I just saw that they have Beethoven's Wig 3!!!)

We might wait and do this study in the summer, but I wanted to post it here so I have everything in one spot.
And, on a different "note", I just bought a Memorial Day set of 12 minibooks to make a lapbook from Lilliput Station. This is actually a project her daughter helped her create. (See May 21st post) So, we'll probably be working on that during the next few days.

Echolocation

Today we worked more on our dolphin lapbook. One thing we discussed was how dolphins "see" by using echolocation. Toad Haven posted a link to some videos entitled "The Boy Who Sees Without Eyes." (Click on title to see all 5 of this hour long, fascinating story.)

(part 1 of 5)

The videos are about a boy who had his cancerous eyes removed when he was only 3. He has since developed a way to "see" by using a series of clicks and listening as the sound bounces off of objects. This boy, who is of course totally blind, can ride his bike down the street, use inline skates, play basketball, play video games (I still don't get this one), all by using "echolocation." It is truly amazing.

The show also talked about how submarines and dolphins use echolocation to move around, so this tied in nicely to our studies.

I also thought the mom was just incredible. She didn't want her son to feel handicapped, so she treats him as if he is totally normal and tells him he can see - just with other senses. I want to be that kind of mom! One who motivates and helps my daughter become all that she can be. What an inspirational show.

Fun with Eggs

Q: What kind of egg lives by the sea?
A: An egg shell

We enjoyed looking around the Golden Eggs site today, including finding some cute "egg" jokes.

We also spent part of our day working on our Legend of the Easter Egg lapbook. Today we were concentrating on science.

Do you know why some eggs are brown and some are white? White eggs come from white chickens and brown eggs come from brownish chickens. And, you can actually tell what color of eggs a chicken will have by looking at its ear lobes. (Did you know chickens had ear lobes???) Cool!

We also talked about the parts of an egg and labeled a diagram.


Then, we did a few egg-speriments. We are currently soaking some eggs (the raw one accidentally broke.) One of the eggs will soak for 24 hours and then we'll observe it and record our observations. Then, we'll let it sit out for 24 hours to see what happens. The other one, we'll soak for 3 days to a week and see what happens.

And, we took a raw egg and a hard boiled egg and spun them both at the same time to see which one spun faster. There was a pretty dramatic difference. And, we had a lot of fun spinning the eggs over & over.
(Book we enjoyed: Guess What is Growing Inside This Egg by Mia Posada)

Easter Week

This weekend, we decided to make a bunny hutch to decorate our table for Easter. Alexandra even added a pool to the backyard.


The kit came with 3 bunnies, but only one of ours survived. I really liked this kit (I just saw some more at Target today), because the hutch is already put together! At Christmas, we had a really hard time putting together our gingerbread house. And, decorating it is the best part anyway!


We've also been working on a free lapbook from Homeschool Share using The Legend of the Easter Egg. It's kind of like a FIAR (Five in a Row) study.

On Monday, we did the language arts section - we read a poem about dying Easter eggs, worked on learning some vocabulary words from the book (like "bedlam" and "pelt"), and talked about similes. We had never discussed similies before and had fun doing a worksheet from this website and then had more fun making up funny similes during lunch.

Today, we did the geography component of the lapbook. We talked about faberge eggs and looked at photos of the eggs we'd made 2.5 years ago when Alexandra was only 4! And, we located Russia, Moscow, and St. Petersburg (where the eggs were made) on a map.

Tomorrow we plan on doing some neat science experiments and there is still more to do! And, there are recipes listed which we will probably do this weekend.

And, on Thursday or Friday we will discuss the real meaning of Easter - Jesus and His death and resurrection. The lapbook includes a Bible verse to memorize, a little book to discuss Good Friday and Easter Sunday, another to discuss the meaning of the bread and wine for communion, and one about the symbolism of the Easter Egg.

We are really enjoying these lapbooks from Homeschool Share and can't wait to do Rechenka's Eggs next week! The study includes more details of the geography of Russia, explains oviparous animal, has Russian recipes, and much more! And, Alexandra has a whole list of lapbooks she'd like to do after that.

Pioneers & The Boston Tea Party

We've been having fun making our Boston Tea Party lapbook that we got free at Homeschool Helper. We also watched Schoolhouse Rocks' No More Kings. Now we're trying to decide which lapbook to do next week. We will probably do either Rechenka's Eggs or Legend of the Easter Egg from Homeschool Share next week for Easter. I have both books on request and they're both "in transit." I like that these lapbooks (including the Boston Tea Party book) are based on great books! But, I wish they were more colorful.

The Boston Tea Party Historical Society's website is also good. To finish up our study tomorrow, I plan on looking at their picture gallery, using their reinactment script using dolls or Littlest Pet Shops or something, and printing out the poster to add to the lapbook - maybe as its cover.

And, after "school" yesterday, we went to our library for a Pioneer Day. I'm so glad we invited some friends to join us at the park first - it was a beautiful day! And, at the library, the kids had great fun making a corn husk doll, making butter, and eating beef jerky and Johnny Cakes. We didn't quite get the doll finished, so we plan on finishing it here at home. And, Alexandra had never tried beef jerky before and really liked it! I'd never tried it before either, and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. :-)

(Great book we read: Joining the Boston Tea Party by Diane Stanley (The Time-Traveling Twins)

We also enjoyed two activities from the Boston Tea Party Ship Museum's website. We built the above model of the Beaver, one of the boats that was part of the Boston Tea Party. And, we printed out and read an entertaining and informative "newspaper" account of the Boston Tea Party.

Math Splat (Fractions) & Boston Tea Party lapbook

We had a really nice day. The sun was out and we started school very late - about 11 am - but we got to take our time and got finished around 5 pm. We did eat lunch and run some errands during that time. Then, I cooked dinner before Alexandra headed to gymnastics. And, we did some of our school time in the garage with the door open! We're going to have to do that again!

Yesterday, Alexandra finished her first book in a new series, "Key to...", that we're trying out. She finished level 1 of Key to Fractions, so we played some online fraction games today. Her favorite by far was Math Splat.

I know I haven't been posting much about our (very SLOW) studies in American History. We recently finished our studies of Colonial America and started studying the American Revolution times yesterday with a book, George vs. George: The Revolutionary War as Seen by Both Sides by Schanzer.

Well, today we were going to concentrate on the Boston Tea Party and Rhonda at Alston Academy sent me a link for free lapbooks. Well, I haven't really enjoyed lapbooks very much in the past, but Alexandra has loved them. And, they happened to have a lapbook about The Boston Tea Party! And, I love 2 things about it: they don't give you all the answers BUT they give you a few books (in the case, 2) where you CAN find the answers! Oh, we're really enjoying this! We own one of the books, so we've started with that and I hope I can get the other one from the library in the next few days. And, I think I see a lot of lapbooks in our future...


While we were in the garage doing school, Alexandra saw a big heron fly by. A few minutes later, he came back and perched on the roof across the street from us! We usually see these birds in the water, not perched on a roof! It was an amazing site to see and I'm glad he stuck around long enough for me to take some photos. And, I identified him as a great blue heron (they stand almost 4 foot tall!)- he even had the ornate plumes on his/her head, but they're hard to see in this photo. You might try enlarging!

FREE Respected American Women Lapbook

Thanks to Jamin' for pointing out this free ebook! Homeschool Estore is offering this great free ebook about respected American Women. Go on over and give it a try! We'll be doing this one soon!

Here are their notes about it:
This lapbook is a study of Respected American Women. These women were chosen, not because of a great "thing" that the accomplished, necessarity...but because they faced great persecution and/or hardship and came through that with honor, respect, and integrity. These are the kinds of women that you would want your daughters to imitate. There are 19 booklets, including Rosa Parks, Wilma Rudolph, Maya Angelou, Harriet Tubman, Nellie Bly, Sally Ride, Hellen Keller, Ann Judson, and so much more. Includes all instructions and also information about what to put in each booklet, including internet links for further research.

Volcanoes

On Sunday, we finished our lapbook for volcanoes. We had a lot of fun and learned quite a bit while putting it together.


One afternoon last week, we exploded our volcano. We had a kit called Exploding Volcano by Becker & Mayer. It was really helpful as we didn't have to build a volcano - we just snapped it together. And, it also came with 2 tubes to keep the vinegar & baking soda separate until you were ready to mix them. It had a 3-piece foam top that should explode of the volcano, but it only worked the first time. I think I might have mixed it stronger that first time. Another possibility is that we weren't cleaning and drying the pieces well enough between explosions.


We had lots of fun & exploded our volcano 8-9 times. We worked outside and I let Alexandra do all the pouring, so it was kind of messy, but fun! The mosquitos were really biting me, or we would have stayed out longer. By the end, we switched from red & yellow lava to blue and then green lava (as you can see in the photo).
Resources:

• Voyage to the Volcano (Magic School Bus Chapter Book) by Juduth Stamper - we love the Magic School Bus!
• Volcanoes (a Let's Read and Find-Out Science Book) by Franklyn M. Branley - I like these science books
• Volcanoes (a True Book) by Paul P. Sipiera - another good series
• Danger! Volcanoes (a See More Reader) - has some great photos
• Volcano! by Ellen J. Prager (National Geographic Society) - has a cartoon dinosaur that tells about volcanoes - some good information
• Vacation Under the Volcano (Magic Tree House) by Mary Pope Osborne - Jack & Annie visit at the time of the Pompeii Explosion
• Hill of Fire by Thomas P. Lewis - great true story about a volcano that builds up in Mexico
• Eruption! The Story of Volcanoes (DK) by Anita Ganeri
• Magic School Bus Blows Its Top (video)
• Pompeii: Lost and Found by Christensen (added Sept 2006) - we really enjoyed this book

Butterfly Lapbook

We bought a butterfly e-book from www.handsofachild.com to make a lapbook. We finished it today and it was a lot of fun. In fact, Alexandra is saying it's the funnest part of school right now! And, she wants to do another one right away. Her choice: chocolate! I tried to tell her we just studied that about a month ago, but that's what she really wants. So, I guess we're starting a chocolate lapbook next.

I was both happy with the way this project turned out and the things I learned from it about lapbooking. We'll do a few more of these "pre-made" lapbooks and then try some on our own! The biggest draw-back I found to this kind of pre-made lapbook was that they covered things differently than I would and that instead of lapbooking things we'd learned, we were looking for answers to put in our lapbook.

Here are the photos:

Photo of cover (above)

Opened one time (above)

Extra flap opened (above)

Lions

I've been wanting to try lapbooking with Alexandra. I found a free lapbook study on lions at http://www.handsofachild.com/2/freebies/, so I decided to do a quick study on lions so we could see how lapbooking works. I was happy with our finished project (need to take some pictures), but we have a lot to learn. It didn't look as "professional" as I'd like it to look. We'll see what happens with our next one.

Other resources:

• http://cp.c-ij.com/english/3D-papercraft/kids/savanna_e.html (made the 3-D illustration of a savanna pictured below to explain the habitat of lions)
• Lions (A True Book) by Squire - we like the True Books!
• Daniel in the Lions' Den by Auld - great version
• Lions at Lunchtime (Magic Tree House) by Mary Pope Osborne
  

We also did something new while visiting my family this weekend. We had a "show and tell" time. My sister's daughter had made a presentation on wildflowers for school, so she shared her board and notebook with us. My daughter & I shared our lion lapbook & savanna. My brother had just returned from Iraq and shared 2 slide show presentations (with videos). And, my mom had went to Europe & gave us souvenirs & had her pictures for us to look through as we had time. We're going to try to do this as a regular event, especially for the children. I'd like to even have a group of homeschool kids that got together once a month or so for a show and tell. I'll have to think about organizing one.
Here's a picture of the inside of our 1st lapbook. I think maybe it is just too bare? (The file folder is yellow - for some reason it looks manilla in this photo.)

This is a picture of the outside. I'm not sure how most people close their lapbooks, but I hot-glued buttons on both sides & used yarn to tie it shut. I also printed out a lion coloring page for Alexandra to color to make our cover. (photo download isn't working)