Our Journey Westward » Lapbooking

Settling the New World and Colonial Life Unit

Cindy — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 14:05:00 +0000

I love Colonial History and, after this unit, I think my children do, too. We covered everything from the first colonies of Roanoke, Jamestown and Plymouth to the settlement of all 13 original colonies to life in colonial times. Thanks to our “spine” books, the unit was packed full of great notebooking/lapbooking activities and tons of hands on experiences.

Some of the hands-on activities included making butter, playing leapfrog, bb gun target practice, sewing, embroidery, knot tying, writing with a homemade quill pen and ink, making candles, knitting, decoupage, making hasty pudding and so much more.

Mahayla’s assigned reading for the unit turned into the TWO books below. I only asked her to complete a “report” on one. I gave her a book called Better Than Book Reports: More Than 40 Creative Responses to Literature which gave her many ideas for fun book reports (mobiles, dioramas, timelines, etc.) She chose to write a book report and give an oral presentation.

Caleb’s assigned reading was:

Among many picture books, we also listened to:

I was able to find lots of fun freebies online for this unit, too…..

Jamestown Online is a fun game that allows you to make decisions like the original settlers would’ve had to make. In the end (it only takes a few minutes), you see how well your colony survived based on your choices. My kids loved it!

Colonial Williamsburg Kids Zone has all sorts of historical online games that also reinforces academic skills. They are short, sweet and fun!

PBS’s Colonial House site has several fun interactive games and quizzes. Would you have survived the colony?

Quia has a fun colonial quiz.

This Salem Witch Trial Site has a neat video about the trials.

The Colonial America 1600-1775 site is FULL of great links!

I’ll be sharing a few of our favorite projects from this unit in other posts later this week. Right now, we’re off to the Revolutionary War!

13 Colonies Lapbook/Notebook

Cindy — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 13:42:00 +0000

We’re finishing up our Thirteen Colonies & Colonial Life Unit this week! I’ll be posting soon about the biggest chunk of the unit, but I wanted to take a minute to highlight the 13 Colonies lapbook/notebook we put together using:

I had to do the legwork of locating library books about each of the Thirteen Colonies, as well as Roanoke, Jamestown and Plymouth. But the wonderful activity ideas were ready and waiting in the book. It turned out to be a lovely way to document a bit of info on each of the colonies we learned about.

Horses Lapbook

Christmas Lapbooks

Cindy — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 20:10:00 +0000

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.

Astronomy Final Projects and Notebooks

Cindy — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 12:30:00 +0000

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

Horses Lapbook

Cindy — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 16:36:00 +0000

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.

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