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 turned into two books for this unit, Calico Bush and Indian Captive.  (She is a voracious reader!)  I only asked her to complete a “report” on one.  I gave her a little book called Book Reports by Frank Schaffer Publications 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 Witch Hunt: It Happened in Salem Village.  Among many picture books, we also listened to Night Journeys and The Witch of Blackbird Pond on tape in the car.

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!

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.

I am truly humbled to have been a part of the Homeschool Blog Awards.  Thank you to everyone who took the time to vote for my blog!!  For a little while I was second only to By Sun and Candlight in several of the categories.  As I told her, she is my blogging “hero” and to be second to her was an honor!  lol

Many congratulations go out to the winners and especially my blogland friends Eclectic Education and One Child Policy Homeschool!

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.

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.

Using Exploring Creation with Astronomy as our main text, we did many of the free notebooking pages the author offers on her website.  We 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

I wrote a post earlier with links to pictures and print-offs for mini offices.  I found just about everything I copied from those sites.

Mahayla’s Language Arts Office includes lots of writing helps and editing reminders, and a parts of speech chart.

Her Math Office includes – oops, a cursive chart! – a multiplication table, measurement equivalencies and conversions, a Roman Numerals chart, a place value chart, a reminder of radius vs. diameter, word problem key words, and a US map (because we didn’t know where else to put it.)

Caleb’s Reading Office includes sound reminders for all letters and many blends, a phonics rules charts, manuscript and cursive charts, an editing checklist, a punctuation chart and some tips for writing good paragraphs.

His Math Office includes a 100 chart, a coin chart, an ordinal numbers chart, perimeter vs. area reminders, a skip counting chart, spellings of the days of the week and months of the year, and that pesky US map.

Mini Offices are somewhat like lapbooks because they’re made out of file folders that you refold, but they’re used as reference sources that your child pulls out and places at their workspace when needed.  You and your child decide what kinds of references would be handy.

map of USA and/or world

manuscript or cursive ABCs

multiplication table

number line

number or color words

grammar rules

writing rules or editing chart

phonics rules

vowel sounds

months and/or days of the week

how to write the date

money values

how to write an address

100s chart

shape names

tally mark values

Roman numerals

Then paste the references into the folders and you’ve created a mini office!  Never again do you have to remind your child what short “a” sounds like!  Never again do you have to spell the number eight out loud!  Never again do you have to show your child how to write today’s date!

The possibilities are as endless as your imagination.  Just in case your imagination doesn’t stretch that far, I’ve found some SUPER resources!!  You’ll find pictures and lots of premade reproducibles.  Get your printer and folders ready.  You won’t be able to resist the urge to create once you see these sites!

Teaching Heart

Mrs. Meacham’s Classroom

Reagan All * Star Kinderbears

Busy Teacher’s Cafe

Shadow-Earth

Related Tags: homeschool, mini offices, reference

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.

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/eclecticeducation/Lapbooking/

I ran across this by chance today and knew it would be very helpful to those of you who were interested in trying lapbboks.  Now, if only I had been this organized the other day, right?  I have an excuse I didn’t find out I was teaching until Sunday.

LAPBOOKING – places to buy lapbooking units and learn more about lapbooking:

www.handsofachild.com and www.knowledgeboxcentral.com

NOTEBOOKING – places to learn more about notebooking and find free notebook pages:

www.notebooking.org and www.cindyrushton.com

Don’t forget to sign up at Homeschool E-Store for a FREE weekly download!!  That’s where I’ve gotten tons of wonderful resources for lapbooking units, notebook pages, unit studies and more.  I think you even get a $5.00 gift certificate just for signing up.  I have a quick link to their site on the right.  ——–>