Guinea Pig Lapbook

We recently acquired two guinea pigs, I say recently but, actually it was last year now from a rescue centre... yes there really are rescue centre's for Guinea Pigs... so naturally the next thing to do was to complete a lapbook on them.


I eventually found one at hands of a child . I was a little unsure at first because the grade level was below that of my daughter and I feared she might have found it too easy but I shouldn't have worried. She was so excited about doing it that she wanted to get started right away so I handed it over and let her run with it.


I am pleased to say that she finished it in record time, learnt a lot and thoroughly enjoyed every minute and that's what it's all about isn't it? I think we all learnt something from it actually so I need not have worried about the grade levels, after all it doesn't matter what age you are, if you haven't read about guinea pigs before then you will definately learn something new.


Below are the photos of the lapbook, I'll try to get a few shots of the actual guinea pigs later and post them up at the bottom too.

Rivers Lapbook

Above is the cover page of our River lapbook, originally it was covered in green glitter all around the outside but it has almost rubbed off with everyone holding it. We were going to re apply but we were begged not to, by a green fingered hubby ;o)

Above photo has a pull down four part flap with info about how a river erodes, below that one is a two flap about flood plains being good for farming and at the very bottom is a three tab booklet about how a river erodes, deposits and transports it's load.

The above photo shows simple folds with information about rivers flowing from side to side, shapes of river valleys, where waterfalls occur and upland rivers having steep sides. I particularly like all the colourful drawings my daughter did to illustrate each point perfectly.

I love these drawings... so much so that I didn't take a photo of the insides but there is plenty of information in there about river basins, source of a river and about rivers becoming deeper towards their mouth.
Below is a fold down flap about meanders and how they deposit their load on the inside bend to form a slip off slope.

The below photo shows the four ways a river transports it's load.

Above is a very colourful water cycle wheel. The photo below has even more info on rivers and their load.

Above and below are photos of my daughter's booklet about famous rivers, well, the three that she wanted to do about :o) This was done on 'Publisher' on the computer, she designed it herself and chose the colour gradients and pictures and I think she's done a lovely job. She made the clever little flap thing that holds it in place too.

The lapbook folds were from here and the information came from a Letts book which you'll find here. The geography book was very thorough but a little dry for our liking so we supplemented with a horrible geography book which covered more or less the same things but in a much more child friendly way.

Mesopotamia Notebook

Below are the piccies from my daughter's first attempt at Notebooking or at least how we perceive it to be. She enjoyed doing it (and learned alot) as it made a change from lapbooking but all the handwriting got a bit much towards the end.
The notebooking pages were from here



The first written page has a map of the area in the corner and information about the lay of the land and what 'Mesopotamia' means. This info was read in Story of the World and history reference books.

The next page has been devoted to King Sargon; his story is remarkably similar to that of Moses.
Next came Hammurabi and his many laws. The pic is of the code or laws which Hammurabi had carved into a monument which showed him getting the laws from the sun god.


The last page is of Nebuchanezzar, somewhere along the line we 'lost' Ashurbanipal and when we realised this my daughter had had enough of the writing, so she didn't bother ;o)

She didn't want to decorate this page or draw a piccie of him either. I think she was quite relieved when she finished writing it up because obviously she had written rough copies too, so all in all she ended up writing quite alot.

Science Festival

Over the next week or so there is a local science festival that happens each year. So far we have been to see 'Galileo and the Stolen Telescope' and to a workshop were we made our own DNA pendant. The Galileo event was very good. A man, in period costume gave a talk on Galileo and the stars etc and we got the opportunity to play with lenses and see through a telescope and learn how they work.

The DNA pendant workshop was about an hour long. We learned about DNA and why we have it and where it is in our bodies and how to extract it out of the nucleus so that we can actually see it. We ended up with a unique pendent.

Over the coming days we have a lot more science things planned, I only wish it was over a month rather than 10 days because there is so much we want to do, but so little time to fit it all in :o(

Resources for HB lapbook

There's been lots of interest in my daughter's Human Body lapbook so I've been trying to remember where everything came from, not an easy job seen as it was done last year and we've had a clean out of computers and the house, so most of info has gone I'm afraid but what I have I can now share with you all and hope that you have as much fun as we did.

The main lapbook is from Hands of a Child, human body one, not healthy bodies. Most of the downloads and printouts came from Ellen Mchenry site. A fantastic site full of all sorts of science stuff and some of it is free of charge. I used the digestive template for the t shirt in our lapbook as my daughter didn't want to wear the t shirt but it worked just as good on paper as on fabric; the brain hat was from here too and I'm utterly convinced that this is the site were 'Boney Bob' came from but I can't find it anywhere :o(

Below are the books we used: 'How your body works' is very good with the naughty bits... there isn't any, on the other hand the Dorling Kingsley book below that one is very lifelike and detailed, not my daughter's cup of tea at all, too gory for her liking. The HB Action pack was very informative with heaps of activities in it to do.

We also used anything and everything off the internet, as my daughter is a very 'hands on' learner. For more info and a few websites please see my previous post on the hb lapbook. I hope you find this useful and have fun doing yoiur own.

Finished Human Body Lapbook

I realised that on the post marked HB lapbook I hadn't gotten around to putting up pics of it so here they are, although I can't remember where all the info came from, (it was a long time ago), but the basic flaps are from HOAC. For more information about what we got up to please see my previous post on the human body.

Above is a skull made out of paper and below is a lot of wool demonstrating how long the digestive system really is. Each different coloured piece represents a different part of the system.

Below is a spinal cord made out of string and beads, smaller ones at the neck and larger ones near the bottom.

It's been a looong time since I posted on here and soooo much has happened in our lives that I don't know where to begin so that you get caught up! It is probably going to be a jumbled up affair and by that I mean that it's not in date order of how things happened but here goes...

My hubby has taken on the role of Northern Area Manager (finally). It is very demanding on our time as a family but that's life, I just keep thanking God that he has a good job when so many people are loosing theirs.

Our eldest daughter is saving to buy a house with her boyfriend and then they will get married at a later date, not exactly the way I would have liked it but at least she has found true love and happiness.

Our middle child left home ed and went to Zenos Academy to study I.T, something that he has dabbled in for many years but finally took the plunge and gained some qualifications: MCDST, MCP, ADITP, A+ Technician, NVQ Level 2 Maths and English, Advanced apprenticeship. He also achieved the following awards: Best performance in gaining a Microsoft Qualification in the Newcastle Academy, Best performance in gaining a Microsoft Qualification in the North of England. (I am obviously extremely proud of him) He is back home now and cooking ginger snaps in the kitchen :o)

Our youngest has been continuing with lapbooks (I have heaps of photos to get on here but that will have to be done over a few days I think) and we have started a Charlotte Mason approach to her education which at the moment is going well and she says she is learning lots and enjoying herself. She has stopped going to trampolining, so far she's done archery, horse riding, Girl Guides, trampolining and this year it's ice skating. We have a few newcomers to the family in the form of hamsters, rabbits and dogs but more about them in another post... off to try out the ginger snaps... sure is good to have him back :o)