Ethiopian Lapbook

Almost forgot to post the pictures of the Ethiopian Lapbook that I made with the kids last week. Again, this was for a family that was adopting a little girl from Ethiopia and I wanted to take advantage of the interest in that country and learn a little about it.

First I took the regular folders and stamped them to look like African print. Each book was one folder and one extra page. I decided to mix it up and turn them to the side instead of the traditional up and down look.
I found a picture of the map online and printed it on card stock paper. Just googled it under images and found one I could use. I had to cut the picture in half to make it work but I really like how it turned out.From here you can see the stamped folder a little better. Here are the mini books that we used.

• Capitol City
• Main religion
• bordering countries
• Where in the World is Ethiopia
• Where is Gracie (the new sister) from
• Main language
  

I use plain white note cards for most of the mini books. Either 3 x 5 or 4 x 6 ones. It makes them a little bit stiffer than printer paper but not as thick as card stock.

Here the 2 side flaps are open and you can see the inside (and still see the top and bottom flap). I took half of a folder and cut it in half again to make the side flaps. Then just used packing tape to attach them. Our mini books include:

• African animals
• flag of Ethiopia
• money
• popular sport
• Are we there yet? (show how long it would take to travel there)
• Sun book share about it being near the equator and what that means

When I am planning a lapbook, I start to jot down things that I think might make good minibooks. Then I gather the info online using google or google images. A few of these books cam from a free website for homeschoolers (HERE).

You can see I write on the outside of most of the mini books and the kids do the writing on the inside. This time I had 5 kids making the lapbooks at once, so I did as much as I could myself. It took 3 sessions of about an hour each time to complete this lapbook. The girls took longer to do the coloring and drawing (they each drew their own African animals) and the boys took a little longer with the writing. But they all did a great job. 3 of these kids had not made a lapbook before, so I wanted this one to be kind of small and easy to accomplish.

I hope these lapbook posts are helpful to those friends who are looking for ideas on lapbooking and serve as inspiration to get creative.

All About Birds - lapbook

We just finished up our ALL ABOUT BIRDS LAPBOOK. I think this is our favorite one so far. If you are interested in checking out some of our other ones, click HERE.

Several months ago I picked up a calendar on the clearance rack at the drug store for about 25 cents. I thought it would make for some good pictures in a lapbook. I am trying to work harder at adding color to the lapbooks which should help the kids remember more (visual learners).

I haven't taken the plunge and purchased any lapbooks. I just make them up as I go along. We have been reading the Apologia book called Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day (HERE). That is where most of our info came from for the lapbook.On our first flaps we have some pictures and the mini books include:

• what makes a bird a bird?
• watching a robin's nest
• benefits of birds
• what is molting?

Inside the first flap we made mini books that include:

• types of beaks (I googled it under images and found these to cut out)
• parts of a bird (couldn't find a good picture so I drew it instead)
• what is preening?
• tools for bird watching (the book that looks like a tool box)
• what birds eat

Flip the page and you find these mini books:

• definitions (habitat, instinct, extinction and migration)
• feather features
• 5 types of feathers
• pocket for bird poetryHere is an up close look at the 5 types of feathers mini book.
  

On the last flap there is:

• pocket for songs, calls and communications of birds
  
• types of bird nests (I printed these pictures from online too)

Lapbooks are always fun to make. Yes...they take some work. But...I think my kids remember so much more information when we learn this way. Hands on learning is really important for hands on kind of learners (kinesthetic).

It is good for me to look back at all that we have done (school wise) this year and realize, we really have accomplished a lot. Whew, almost done and ready for a little break.

Easter lapbook

As I was checking in on my friend Tiffany (HERE), I was once again challenged to do another lapbook. She is the one who got me started with lapbooks in the first place. She had found a link for a free Easter lapbook that looked pretty good. And let's be honest, it was the fact that it was free and ready to print that got me to do it. So if you are looking for a quick download project for the rest of the week, go check it out HERE.

I had spotted decorated file folders at Ross the other day and thought they would be the perfect compliment to this lapbook. The look is vintage, and that goes with the old vintage art on the verse cards in the last picture.
This lapbook was kind of like a blank card, you can do what ever you want on the inside of the mini books. I did read the "story" that was also downloaded which was the re-telling of Easter. Then the girls journaled for each mini-book. This is the shutter fold of a file folder. If you are new to lapbooking go to this post to learn more about how to make a lapbook HERE.Here is the lapbook opened up. I always like when the mini-books fit in the small spaces on the flaps.This was a short lapbook (took us 3 short afternoons to make it). We didn't need much more than the extra half flap that I taped to the top of the center area. Again, got that great idea from Tiffany.

We also printed out the verse cards and the girls colored those while I was reading to them. I love the sweet old vintage art on these cards. We decided just to attach them to the back of the lapbook.

This whole lapbook has also helped prepare our hearts for Easter as part of our Lenten activities.

Plymouth Colony Pocket Books

If I had been more on the ball I would have had this posted last week when we finished it and it would have been appropriate for Thanksgiving. But, I am thankful that we finished it in time for the holiday and we were able to appreciate some history from the beginning of our country and
how difficult times were back then.

This is similar to a lapbook just a little different style. This is a pocket book and they are loads of fun for the hands on kind of learning. This ones comes from Evan Moor (HERE) and it is the Plymouth Colony Pocket Book (HERE). The idea is to have different pockets for information that the kids work on. The book that you get from Evan Moor tells you how to step by step do all of this. All you really need is to copy the pages for each child and have the extra large kind of construction paper. You could put the info into file pockets instead (we might try something like that next time).Pocket 1 included the Voyage to the New World. The mini books included in this pocket were a Mayflower ship, a trunk of things to take to the new world, map with route and words to know flap book (vocab words from the info that you read to the students ~ each pocket has "words to know").
Pocket 2 was the New World and included the Mayflower Compact, word search and words to know. Each pocket also includes a few paragraphs that the kids can read and color (the information). For the teachers information, I read the page of info for the kids while they are coloring and cutting for the mini books.



Pocket 3 was Building a Village. On this one we made a "tithing man stick" (used to keep children and adults behaving properly in church), a town crier booklet and words to know. For the town crier, I had the girls write their own info and then ring a bell in the yard and act it out as if they were the town crier.

Pocket 4 was all about the Plymouth home. The girls made a portable diorama (on the left) along with the other basics for this pocket. They learned about the keeping room and we studied how simple the life was.


Pocket 5 was about the Plymouth Family. They made puppets (on the left) and we studied some typical pilgrim names. One of their favorites was making the "stew of good manors" as we learned about how strick the family was.


Pocket 6 was about Working in Plymouth Colony. We learned about the farming and the different trades and crafts that quickly became popular. The mini books included a quilt book, a sign for a shop, and a mini book that listed the crafts and trades.



Pocket 7 was about going to school in Plymouth Colony. The girls made a horn book and a reader that would have been used then. The horn book has a sheet of wax paper on top and they used a stick to copy the alphabet.

Pocket 8 included a conclusion of all that we learned about the Pilgrim life and what the Pilgrims gave us. The goose thing on the left is a copy of an old time toy (kind of wish we could make it out of wood, it is cute).


We were able to do 2 pockets a day for a few days to get our project done before Thanksgiving. Ideally, it would take longer. All in all, I do really like these, almost as much as lapbooks. And if you are looking for other pocket book ideas, Evan Moor has quiet a few. Most of them only have about 4 pockets each. Click HERE for some ideas.

Laura Ingalls Wilder Study and lapbook

Warning...lots of pictures and instructions on how to make this lapbook. Enjoy you homeschool and or crafty moms. Hope to be a place of resource for you. You can click on the picture to enlarge it so you can see what it looks like.
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We have just finished studying Laura Ingalls Wilder for school and it has proven to be a huge favorite topic to study. I read some biographies from the local library to the girls and we started gathering information to make a lapbook. The girls also have been reading the books on their own for fun and we have also discovered the show on TV. To finish it off, we attended a Laura Ingalls Wilder presentation from a local librarian at a womens meeting at my neighbor's church.

Here are the girls with our sweet neighbor lady. Of course they wore their prairie dresses and bonnets. Sad to say, those are getting too small. I am fighting the urge to make them some more dresses. Here are the girls with the lady who gave the nice presentation and another HS girl and her super cute prairie dress (the dress that got me thinking about making ones for my kiddos).







We have really enjoyed lapbooking and I am really amazed at how much information the kids retain from this kind of learning. Totally hands on. Totally creative. And they want to look back at the books and show them to any willing audience. =)

While I read to the girls, they were making the mini books that go in the lapbook. I do the cutting, and they do the rest. We used a color copy from one of our first (geared for young readers) Laura books as a cover. On the back cover, we made a pocket for misc. timeline info we found.


So far, we have stuck to the traditional shutter fold folders glued to each other. This lap book was 2 folders connected. The orange MAP book included maps from Laura's travels. On the left flap were info about her family (parents, siblings, children...)Inside the first flap we made a book about different jobs Laura had and included some illustrations from the Little House books. The large purple and white book is another map and all the towns she lived in.

The yellow book is opened here to show ALL the times Laura moved. As I was reading the biography, we kept a log of this and then the girls put this in the wagon book (got the wagon from enchanted learning).

On the left is a small blue mini book with a map of where the Little House books take place. We learned that not all books are exactly like Laura's life. On the bottom right is a blue and white book that tells when she was born and died.
Here is a accordion fold mini book with open flaps that show all the different kinds of houses Laura lived in. Everything from a log cabin to a sod house to the final home of Rocky Ridge farm that she and Almanzo owned.

This mini book is a flip book that lists all of Laura's books and when they were published (several published after her death). Then the girls included their own art for each book. That allows them to draw and be extra creative.
This picture shows an accordion style fold mini book that lists all the difficult things that took place during the first 4 years of Laura and Almanzo's marriage. You can also see the red mini book that we made for the family album. We included some pictures of the different members of Laura's family (remember, she really wasn't Melissa Gilbert).

Space Lapbook

We finished our lapbooks today that we have working on for several weeks. Lapbooking was totally new to me until I met my friend Tiffany. She inspired me to try something new and I am glad we did. The idea is to take some kind of board (on this one we used file folders glued to each others ~ you can also use poster boards). Then you make little mini books and attach them to the boards. I use Dinah Zike's Big Book of Books for mini book ideas.

Our science curriculum tells us to take notes, record definitions and draw pictures that goes along with what we learn each day. Instead of doing that, we made little books each day.
As for all the pictures, sorry they are fuzzy and not clear.
Here you can see the constellations book, Galileo time line, and other misc. mini books. Notice the phases of the moon pull down book.

We also made a glossary with all the vocabulary words and a star pocket with a little star game we made up.



We decided to make a little book (all the orange and green ones) for each of the planets. After I read to them from the books that we are studying, they came up with bullet points that they remembered about the planets. The long yellow book is the planets in order with a picture of it on the inside.





This red mini book was a chart of the planets and the speed of rotation and orbits. Tristen coined the phrase E years/days/hours (for Earth years/days/hours). The orange one was just for fun - a prediction of the future of space.


Today we finished with space travel and different galaxy shapes. Notice how these books open up to neat shapes.





One of the things that I like about lapbooking is the kids want to keep looking back through what they have made. And it is another opportunity to "review" what they have learned.