Rhino Lapbook...

When I gave Jackson a choice of what mammal he wanted to learn about I was very surprised when he chose the rhino. However, he really enjoyed learning about them and was very upset to hear how endangered they are. I asked what he wanted to do for his cover and he came up with this on his own. He went and removed the tails off two of his dinosaurs to make horns. I thought that was pretty clever and love how it turned out.

I seriously can't imagine schooling without Homeschool Share. I know different people write the lapbooks, and whoever wrote the rhino one did an amazing job. It's beautiful and covers a variety of topics. I also liked how it was all different kinds of mini books.

I liked how it was organized by African rhinos and Asian ones. That made excellent opportunities for us to compare and contrast. However, our favorite part had to be the joke book. I love when the kids have fun. Jackson told those jokes to everyone!

Of course, our go-to back cover is our Draw, Write Now creation. If you don't have these books- you need them. It's amazing how there is always a picture that relates to what you're studying no matter what it is! I can really tell how it has improved Jackson and Ashton's drawing too!

So that is what Jackson and I voted our favorite lapbook!

Ashton's Mini Office...

Eight months later I finally got around to putting together Ashton's mini office! For those of you who don't know, a mini office is a great resource compiled in a file folder that they can stand up and make their own little cubicle like an office. It has lots of good resources that would normally be on the walls of a classroom like a word wall and hundred's chart for example. I am so sorry to say that I printed these out so long ago that I don't remember where I got them all, but if you search for mini offices they are everywhere. At least she was excited about it.

Our first big study this year will be on money so she has lots of good resources to help her with that.

She has addition and subtraction fact sheets and several different word wall and seasonal words so I used brads to hold several on top of each other.

The right hand side are writing resources like an editing checklist, questioning words and how to write a paragraph-hamburger style.

I still need to add a list of books of the Bible which we are also working on learning. I'm also hoping to add maps with continents and oceans and the 50 states.

Now that I finally got this together I'm looking forward to seeing how we can best use it throughout the year. If nothing else, it can become a barrier between her and her brother!

The Things We Do for Lapbooks...

The kids got to choose which mammal they wanted to study and I was surprised when Jackson chose a rhinoceros. I got an awesome rhino lapbook from Homeschool Share

and was so pleased when we both learned a lot about rhinos. Jackson really enjoys finding or making pictures for his covers(he gets it honest :). He came up with this idea of pulling the tails off his remote control dinosaurs to use as rhino horns! I thought that was very creative!

You know Baby Girl is not about to be left out of any goofiness so here she is:

I'm really not sure who lives lapbooking more me or them :)

Weather Lapbook...

We wrapped up our homeschooling year by a unit study of weather. My husband was the most excited about this as he harbors a secret dream of being a meteorologist. I got us lots of great weather books and away we went. As usual, we got most of our printables from Homeschool Share but we did add some things. I made the lightning shaped book and was pretty proud of it. We wrote facts about lightning inside it after reading Seymour Simon's Lightning book. Jackson particularly loved this book. He wrote so many facts he had to write in tiny little letters! We also had some fun making the different kinds of clouds out of cotton balls.

This was a really colorful lapbook we enjoyed. We also studied the water cycle and the 3 states of matter. That was my favorite part.

We used our Draw, Write Now to make our covers. I thought Jackson's airplane was really good.

This time when I put the lapbooks together I created a top loading pocket between the 2 folders. We used it to hold all the worksheets and the easy reader booklets we made.

For this study I chose some vocab words that went with weather to be Jackson's spelling and vocab. We made a little flapbook with the words on the outside which opened to show the definitions. I also printed out junior meteorologist certificates for them (I probably should've made Jon one too.).

Another lapbook to add to our ever growing collection!

Dolphins Lapbook...

The kids were allowed to pick a mammal to study and Ashton chose a dolphin. I was surprised she chose another ocean animal, but who could resist a dolphin?

We took full advantage of our Draw, Write Now and she drew a great dolphin and practiced some handwriting:

We read some great dolphin books. I am amazed at how much she remembers that I read to her. Her favorite things she learned about were dolphins that have rescued people. Using resources from Homeschool Share have really saved me a lot of preparation. It is so wonderful to see her learn so much and especially to be able to study things she is interested in.

I'm really glad I let the kids choose which animals to study as that automatically helps with their motivation. Ashton is getting really great at lapbooking and is only a kindergartner- makes me proud :)

Jellyfish Lapbook...

When the kids were allowed to choose which invertebrate they wanted to study, Jackson chose jellyfish. We got some great books at the library. This one was my favorite because it had the perfect readability and great pics and info:

These were also great books we read parts of. I think one of the coolest parts of homeschooling is learning right along with my kids. I've never known so much about jellyfish. They're kind of scary!

I was making some gel bags for a writing center and had gel all over. It occurred to me that a bag filled with hair gel dyed blue would make a great jellyfish. I attached it to the front of the lapbook with glue dots then cut out colored paper in the shape of a jellyfish. I think it turned out great, and Jackson said, "This is the best lapbook cover ever!"

The inside is all great free resources from Homeschool Share as usual:

I love lapbooking. I think I'll start doing my own. What would I study? I'll have to think on that one and get back to you:)

Starfish Lapbook...

When we began studying animal classification, I decided to spend a week on each category studying an animal from each. We began with invertebrates. I let them choose from animals that Homeschool Share had lapbooks on, sneaky huh? Ashton chose a sea star. We headed to the library where we checked out this great book that was the exact mix of enough info and real pictures.

We decided to tackle an art project for the cover (honestly, I was trying to use up some of her millions of beads from beading kits that seem to be everywhere!). She enjoyed it, but it is a bit of a mess still as beads fall off a lot!

I always think of Jackson as my animal lover, but Ashton really loved this and learned a lot about them. Her favorite things were the regeneration one where you can move the arm back and forth to represent it growing back.

I made this little surprise pop up book for her...

She was so tickled because she does love Patrick (and now you know my dirty little secret of that questionable but really funny show I let my kids watch!)...

10 Commandments Lapbook...

We wrapped up our study of Moses with a 10 commandment lapbook. This is one of those lapbboks that I got different components of from several different sites and did not keep track of where I got them! I'm sorry that I can't share the links for things, but I'll do better next time:) If you really want any of it leave a comment and I'll try to search it down for you!

I loved this printout because you cut flaps under the numbers so that they lift up to reveal what the commandment actually is. I am really trying to let them be creative with the fronts of their lapbooks so they got to watercoler paint these!

This was Ashton's colorful stone:

This was Jackson's more realistic stone:

The left is a song to the tune of "Jingle Bells: which my non-musical self probably blundered! The right side only Jackson did as it was a matching worksheet.

(Blogger is refusing to let me turn this picture!) All of the little matchbooks were actually Jackson's addition. We used this opportunity to learn Roman numerals, and he came up with writing them all on matchbooks which flip up to show the "real" number. I am so often dictating what their lapbooks contain that I was proud of his addition. Even though it doesn't look as neat as I would like, I'm trying to let go of the control and let it be totally theirs, as it should be! We also did a maze and word search.
Jackson chose this coloring page for his back:

Ashton chose this one:
My favorite part was where they told me what they thought the 10 commandments were before we learned the real ones! I typed and printed them and we added it to the lapbook. They are definately something I want to remember! It was really funny!

Jackson's were:

1. Use God's name in a good way.

2. Trust in God.

3. Be nice to one another.

4. Do not steal.

5. Do not hit.

6. Obey your mom and dad.

7. Take care of God's animals.

8. Take care of God's land.

9. You have to learn every day.

10. Share love.

(OK- you can tell he is homeschooled by #9 but he's sounding a little like a hippie on #10 and the whole "green" message is really sinking in #8 and is why we are now recycling!)

Ashton's were hilarious:

1. Be nice to yourself.

2. Take care of your dog.

3. Brush your teeth.

4. Sharpen your pencil.

5. Be nice to your friends.

6. Share your toys.

7. Share love all around town.

8. Listen to our teachers.

9. Love your mom and dad.

10. Play nice with your brothers and sisters.

My favorite is picturing God in His big booming voice saying to Moses as he etches on stone: "Sharpen thou pencils!"

I think the best thing about this lapbook is that we can look over it later to remind us of what the 10 commandments are. We actually did this lapbook all in one day-yeah us!

Officer Buckle and Gloria Lapbook...

While big brother had the flu we didn't do much in the way of school. I needed something for Ashton to do so we came up with a lapbook about one of her favorite books, Officer Buckle and Gloria. I got all the things from Homeschool Share.

She illustrated the cover.

She got to practice her address and phone number, all our names, and finding the title, author and illustrator.

Her least favorite part was copying Humpty Dumpty because she has started hating handwriting! We did vocabulary from the book, listed reasons to call 911, learned about helping dogs, and wrote sentences with words from the book. My favorite part was where she had to write her own safety tips like Officer Buckle does in the book.

I enjoyed doing this little project with just Ashton and she seemed pretty proud of it as well!

Egyptian Lapbook...

When we studied ancient Egypt I couldn't find a ready to go lapbook so we used blank templates from Homeschool Share to create our own and organize out research. I also found these great coloring figures that they used for the cover...

We used matchbooks to record our favorite facts about different aspects of their lives like games, food, houses, etc. We also did a flipbook for an acrostic poem, about Egypt. My favorite find was the triangle shaped book we used to record facts about pyramids. When we mummified our Barbies we also made a step book recording each step in the mummification process.

I found a great book on sale about Egypt that included some great stickers. The kids had fun using them to decorate their lapbooks.

This is a little lapbook, but it is packed full of info! I absolutely loved everything about our Egypt study and the kids were so proud of themselves which is what it is all about!