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!

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 :)

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!)...