Posted by Cindy on December 18, 2007
Here’s a peek at our Christmas Lapbooks that we finished last week. Mahayla’s is red, Caleb’s is green. We used many activities from the Symbols of Christmas lapbook unit from Hands of a Child. All the extra math/logic/problem solving worksheets, plus some science worksheets were stapled together inside the large panel on the right side. This keeps all the unit work together in a nice, neat package.
This week is light. We’re working on math everyday, putting together our newsletter and just having some Christmas craft and baking fun. At the end of the week, we’ll be officially halfway through our school year! And on a well deserved break for a couple of weeks.
Posted by Cindy on December 14, 2007
We finished our astronomy unit this week! The kids spent a couple of days preparing final projects and presented them in front of the video camera on Thursday. They were able to choose whatever astronomy topic most interested them. It’s no surprise that Caleb chose astronauts as his topic. Mahayla focused on stars.
Caleb’s presentation included a talk about astronaut suits (see his helmet and jet pack?), space shuttles, rockets, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, dehydrated food and thrust.
Mahayla’s presentation included information about the sun, other notable stars, constellations, how to use an astronometer to tell the brightness of stars and some information about light years.
We used Exploring Creation With Astronomy as our main text, and also added in a few lapbooking activities and lots of hands on projects. I put what we had into modified lapbooks. The lapbooking activities were glued on the first flap, while the notebooking pages were simply stapled together at the top of the other side.
Our trip to the Answers In Geneis Creation Museum’s Planetarium earlier this year was a great addition to this unit!
Here are a few of the fun website games the kids enjoyed during the unit.
Solar System Trading Cards
Problems in Space
Make Your Own Solar System
Posted by Cindy on March 28, 2007
We just finished a wonderful lapbooking unit on horses! Back when Eli was only a month old, we did our very first lapbook on snow. Although it was fun and a great learning experience, I didn’t put much effort or planning into it. This time, I took time to plan and – wow, what a great unit it’s been. The kids have learned SO MUCH and have a beautiful keepsake of their work to remind them of our time spent.
I used the lapbooking unit from Hands of a Child and added some of my own assignments as well, especially for Mahayla. Her added work included a circle story about a horse, a horse report, taking/saving/printing pictures of horses, a checklist of horse care skills learned, a log of horse books read and songs learned, a map of horses around the world, drawing horses, a visit to a tack shop and horse farm, completing a crossword of breeds, and creating a horse comic strip. Caleb did some of these things, too. There were some of the activities we didn’t do from the Hands of a Child unit because I preferred to have the kids learn a few of the things in different ways. The lapbook books can get a little tedious, so I spiced things up a bit.
Here are the covers. Mahayla’s is a picture she drew. Caleb’s is a dot-to-dot he colored.
Here are the back covers – a world map.
Here is Caleb’s – two folders put together. In the first. I’m holding up a story he narrated that we stapled at the top. In the second, I’m holding up a Draw Write Now horse picture he drew.
Here is Mahayla’s. Hers is three folders put together. The second picture shows an animal report and a drawing stapled at the top. There are lapbook activities underneath. The fourth picture is the third back of a folder.
