Lapbooks – Preparation Education

Force and Motion Lapbook

October 15, 2014October 14, 2014prayingmother

For science, Ace and I are doing the Noeo Science Physics I curriculum. This curriculum was written specifically for homeschoolers, grades one through three. So far, we are enjoying it. It pulls together several different books both on science and biographies on scientists. This curriculum includes Young Scientist Club Kits for experiments. I really like the experiments, and making notebook pages to go along with some of them is great practice too. We did not do a notebook page for every experiment, because being that Ace is nine years old, he still considers writing and bookwork to be boring, but he loves doing the experiments. (At my age, I actually still agree with him, but if nobody recorded their findings, we wouldn’t have science.)

This science curriculum claims to be a Charlotte Mason style curriculum with all “living” books. I will agree that some of the books qualify as “living” books, but some are a bit dry, with mostly little text boxes around pictures. That works, but I was hoping for something more fun to read. I am thinking about trying to figure out what sections of The New Way Things Work book correspond with the different units in the Noeo Physics. That is a really great book, and I already own it. We read it some last year, and loved it. I was really hoping for an open and go science curriculum that was really interesting and fun to read, and while this one is really good, I think it still has room for improvement.

Okay that is my review after doing one unit, now on to a few pictures from our first unit. The first unit was “Force and Motion.” There were lots of fun experiments about friction, gravity, Newton’s third law of motion and more. We enjoyed things from racing cars on sand paper to slamming coins into a line of other coins to see what happened.

Here is the lapbook that we made to go with this.

We laminated the cover image and then glued it on the left side of the lapbook with glue dots and attached it to right side of the lapbook with a velcro dot.

Excuse that I misspelled “Centrifugal”–bad teacher moment.

The list of sources for the lapbook: (no affiliate links)
Newton’s Laws of Motion from Jimmie Langley (Scroll down to find Newton’s Laws of Motion Book)
Cover for Gravity Mini Book from Crayola
Both Friction Mini Books from Tools & Technology Book by Dinah Zike
“Force x Distance = Work” Mini Book also from the Tools & Technology Book by Dinah Zike
Balanced & Unbalanced Flap Book by Haley Grant (Scroll down quite a ways to find link.)
Cover art by Phillip Martin

I have to admit that we looked at the lapbook that was done by Jimmie’s daughter from Jimmies Collage quite a bit since hers was also based on the Noeo Physics 1 forces and motion unit. If you’d like to take a peak at hers, here is the link.

Overall, he seemed to enjoy this unit a lot. He especially enjoyed the experiments. Next is Sound and Light.

Preschool Art Lapbook of Sorts

October 3, 2014September 30, 2014prayingmother

Since my third grader made a lapbook about Leif Erikson, my preschooler wanted to make a lapbook too. She totally designed this all by herself, (Act surprised!) because that’s what preschoolers like to do. Sometimes it’s just fun to let preschoolers do what preschoolers do, (other than when you have to clean up.)

It’s pretty though. I decided to document it, just because I like it.

Leif Erickson Lapbook

October 2, 2014September 30, 2014prayingmother

My third grader and I are doing the Early American History Study by Beautiful Feet. We just finished our first unit in the guide—Leif Erikson. We read the book, Leif the Lucky through two or three times, just because we enjoyed it so much. It’s not only well written, but has great illustrations, and that makes a book a win-win for an early elementary student. We also had lots of fun researching online about Vikings and Native Americans that Leif may have met.

And, of course, Ace thought that being Leif Erikson was one of the best parts of the unit.

Ace made a lapbook to show some of the things that he learned about Leif Erikson. Here are a few pictures.

List of sources for the lapbook (Some are affiliate links):

Cover picture from Exploration of North America Coloring Book (Dover History Coloring Book)
Map from Interactive 3-D Maps: American History by Donald Silver
“Who Were the Vikings” and “Vikings Were Also Called” both from Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Blog Vikings Lapbook
Northern Lights from Google Images
“Native Americans in Vinland” from Google Images
“Father & Son Explorers” from History Through the Ages Timeline Figures
Viking Ship from Homeschool Share Viking Multi-Theme Unit
Coin idea from Homeschool in the Woods’ Great Empires Activity Pak
Viking mask from Funnycoloring.com
Paper Ship Model from forbicolla.com (not in English)

So far so good, as far as the Beautiful Feet Guide. What a nice pick of books they have made for this age group. Next comes Columbus, but first we are working on finishing up a science project.

“Origins” Lapbook by Ace (Age 8)

July 31, 2014July 23, 2014prayingmother

Here is the third and last lapbook on Origins. This one is by Ace.

If you’d like to see the sources that we used for these mini-books please see my previous post. All of the writing in this lapbook was dictated to me by Ace, but he did all the fancy designing and coloring in his lapbook. He also completely designed his Creation Days Wheel.

The cover:

The spread:

Vocabulary:

The Flood:

The Fall:

Why history is important:

Tower of Babel

Science Hoaxes:

Mt. St. Helens for a Young Earth:

Why Creation:

Ice Age:

Dinosaurs:

Evidence of a Young Earth:

Creation Days Circle:

If you’d like to see the other posts on this topic, here are the links:
How it All Began Unit
Zippy’s “Origins” Lapbook
JD’s “Origins” Lapbook

“Origins” Lapbook by JD (Age 11)

July 30, 2014July 30, 2014prayingmother

Here is the second lapbook on Origins. This one is by JD Boy.

If you’d like to see the sources that we used for these mini-books please see my previous post. JD Boy designed his own cover. JD wrote in some of his books and he dictated for me to write in some, but all were his answers. They are fun to read. I also think JD did some mighty fine coloring on a couple of these mini books.

The cover:

The spread:

The mini books:

Vocabulary:

Science Hoaxes:

Dinosaurs:

Days of Creation:

Why Creation?

Mt. St. Helens Evidences of a Young Earth:

Tower of Babel:

The Flood:

Evidences of a Young Earth:

Why History is Important:

Ice Age:

The Fall:

If you’d like to see the other posts on this topic, here are the links:

Origins Unit Study
Zippy’s “Origin” Lapbook
Ace’s “Origin” Lapbook

“Origins” Lapbook by Zippy (Age 14)

July 29, 2014July 23, 2014prayingmother

I decided that I’m going to share one lapbook a day from our origins study. We will start with my oldest’s lap book.

As you can see, washi tape was popular for this project. You will see it on all three lapbooks. The kids said they won’t use it again because it curls so bad, but it’s pretty this time.

I did have sources on hand for most of these mini books in this lapbook. Our sources were: Old Testament Activity Pak by Homeschool in the Woods, Creation Science Lapbook by In the Hands of a Child, and Binder-Builder by A Journey Through Learning for Truth Quest History Beginnings Guide. I had all of these before we did this study, so we picked and chose from all three. Zippy designed her own cover and also her own Creation Days Wheel.

(I see a few grammatical and spelling errors in these pictures that we missed. Guess we’ll have to go fix those.)

The Cover:

The Spread:

The mini-book close-ups:

Vocabulary:

Why Creation?

Mt. St. Helens Evidences for a Young Earth

Science Hoaxes Used to Prove Evolution

Evidences of a Young Earth

Creation Days Wheel (Design and Art by Zippy)

Tower of Babel/Distribution of People Groups

Dinosaurs

The Flood

Why History is Important

Ice Age

The Fall

If you’d like to see the other posts on this topic, here are the links:

Origins Unit Study
JD’s “Origin” Lapbook
Ace’s “Origin” Lapbook

How It All Began Unit

July 28, 2014July 23, 2014prayingmother

We recently finished a unit on how life began. We had been studying ancient history for awhile, but had skipped over the prehistory sections, but I decided that for my older two children, in particular, it was time to address the theory of evolution. So we backed up and discussed some of the early chapters in our ancient history books. To be fair, I am a staunch Young Earth Creationist, so that did influence the course of our study. I suppose it was actually the study of evolution from the creationist viewpoint. I want my children to realize that evidence for the stories of Creation and The Flood are not only found in the Bible but in other ancient documents and that there is evidence for them in some scientific studies.

Here is a list of the sources that we used:

The Usborne Encyclopedia of the Ancient World: Internet Linked (History Encyclopedias) (This is a secular history book.)

Streams of Civilization: Earliest Times to the Discovery of the New World (Vol 1) (79555) (The first chapter deals with different ideas of origin.)

Beginnings (Creation/Old Testament/Ancients/Egypt) (I love all of the other Truth Quest History Books that I’ve used, but this one is not my favorite. But I’m still using the parts that I like out of it, since I have it.)

The Great Dinosaur Mystery Video (Watch online for free.)

Creation vs Evolution by Terry McComb (DVD)

After we studied about origins from these sources, my three oldest children worked on lap books to show what they had learned. They all did a beautiful job on each lap book, but I plan to share those over the next few days.

Here are the links for:
Zippy’s “Origins” Lapbook
JD’s “Origins” Lapbook
Ace’s “Origins” Lapbook

Short Vowels

March 12, 2013March 12, 2013prayingmother

G’tums was having trouble remembering which vowel made which sound, so we decided to do a little project that was fun and now he has them mastered.

We cut off the bottom of a file folder and glued in these little cards. He cut out and colored the clip art on the front which was taken from the Dinah Zike Line Art Library. He punched out the letters on my Big Shot. And he cut out the words that I typed that began with the short vowel sounds and glued them into the corresponding mini book.

This project was adapted from an idea in the book: Foldables and VKVs® for Phonics, Spelling, and Vocabulary PreK-3rd by Dinah Zike.

Native American Unit Study & Lapbooks

February 15, 2011May 3, 2012prayingmother

Our study of Native Americans was, of course, not comprehensive, but it was pretty broad. We went to one of our local libraries and just picked up a book on every tribe that we could find. Then we figured out that there was one particular series that we liked best, so we got the rest in that series on interlibrary loan. This the series called A First Americans Book by Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t find a book about Indians from our area of the world, so we purchased If You Lived With Indians of the Northwest Coast. That was a great little book. We enjoyed so much learning about Northwest Indians and enjoyed looking at photos on the internet of totem poles too.

As usual, the kids made lapbooks about the things they learned. This is the first time that my little preschooler has made a lapbook to go along with what the others were studying. He’s growing up so fast. So here’s his first. His favorite elements were the eagle that had wings that he could flap and the dot-to-dot dream catcher.

(These lapbooks are all in slideshows. If you mouse over them in the bottom quarter, you will see the thumbnails and click on the first one to start them over, if you weren’t able to see the whole set.)

Created with flickr slideshow from softsea.

JD Boy designed and drew the stuff on his cover. There is a totem pole for the Northwest Indians and a tipi for the Plains Indians. He also made a lot of the elements inside his lapbook completely by himself: the tipi, the shield and he changed around how the birch bark canoe was supposed to work. He narrated to me what he wanted written about each group of Indians inside the appropriate mini books. Other elements were either taken from pictures from the internet, Dover coloring books and the book History Pockets, Native Americans.

Created with flickr slideshow from softsea.

Zippy has become quite a writer. She loves to write. She did lots of writing in this lapbook. She designed most of her mini books, using pictures that she found on the internet and then wrote on the inside about the different Indian tribes and traditions. For her cover she cut out the back cover of one of our Dover coloring books.

Created with flickr slideshow from softsea.

I hope my kids learned a lot from this unit. I was surprised at how much I learned about the North American Indians. I was often saddened by how they were treated in some of the stories that we read. We had plenty of opportunity to discuss the difference between Christians and real Christians while reading how the Native Americans were treated.

Ten Commandments Lapbook

January 31, 2011February 1, 2011prayingmother

At our home, we have been working on setting chapters of the Bible to memory. Three of my kids are old enough to memorize the Bible and are each working on different chapters. My oldest is learning 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter. My next child is learning The Beatitudes, or Happy Attitudes as he calls them. And my preschooler is learning Psalm 23. We have been using the books and CD’s from Thy Word Creations for this endeavor, so that we are also learning the chapters set to music.

I believe that memorizing the Bible strengthens our minds, besides giving a spiritual blessing. I believe that time spent in memorizing the Bible with my children will not be lost on their other school subjects, because I believe so strongly that it will strengthen their minds and actually help them in the other subjects, as well. And most importantly, I’ve been claiming this verse for my children, while I help them with their memorization: “Thy Word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.” (Psalm 119:11.)

The passage that JD Boy just finished memorizing was the Ten Commandments. He had a hard time keeping the last six in order, so he decided that he would like to make a simple lapbook to help him visualize their order. Here are some pictures of his lapbook.

Each matchbook has the Commandment number on the top flap, a picture to go with the respective Commandment on the bottom flap, and the words of the Commandment on the inside. Here is the inside of the Tenth Commandment book.

Since JD Boy and I designed these matchbooks ourselves, I uploaded them to HSLaunch, so you can use them for free. I have also uploaded the pages that my daughter used for copywork when she memorized the Ten Commandments a couple of years ago.

The links:
Ten Commandment Matchbooks
Ten Commandment Copywork Notebook Pages