Digilapbook Designer

Below is the link for my son's finished program for designing digilapbooks. We would really love it if you would sign up (for free) and start making your own!

http://www.digilapbook.co.nr/

Classification lapbook

My youngest daughter got to grips with and finished her HOAC classification lapbook. She enjoyed working on it and I felt she was capable to be left alone with it, so I got on with lots of little things around the house. We've been listening to lots of Christmassy music and she's been practising carols on her keyboard, all in all it's being very festive in our house this week.

Rabbit lapbook (HOAC)

So what have we been up to this week? Not much really. I think we are slowing down and reserving energy ready for the christmas period ;o)

It's my eldest daughter's birthday this weekend so preparations are underway for that, such as cake baking and decorating it, present making and card making. We are looking forward to Chinese for tea. It's become a bit of a traditional in our house that on birthday's we visit the Chinese and we luurrvve it!

We have continued watching 'Little Dorrit' and 'Oceans'. This week in Science we've done about food webs, food chains and changing environments. No experiments were neccesary as my youngest remembered with a shudder, my son doing the 'woodlice environment' last year and trusted his results entirely!

My youngest has nearly finished her lapbook on Shakespeare, and read a great novel by Gary Blackwood, well 3 in 1 novels to be precise; she highly reccomends it.

My daughter also finished her HOAC Rabbit Lapbook this week; she did all the cutting out, sticking and fact finding herself and we're really pleased with the finished results. She has 2 pet rabbits so obviously knows quite abit about rabbits already but even she found out new facts about them from the lapbook.

Routine and digi lapbook

We seem to have naturally fallen into our own schedule recently. Mon, Wed and Fri = Maths, English, Science and Art, Tues and Thurs = Maths, History/Geography and helping at local Toddler group and going out. Dog walking and general exercise is a daily occurance!

Last week we explored writing non-fiction, continued with times tables, watched Twelth Night and Julius Caesar and started a Shakespeare lapbook. We took a break from Science last week as youngest wanted to look at WW1 after seeing her Grandpa in a parade marking the end of the war. We've also started watching a really good programme on oceans: http://www.bbc.co.uk/oceans/
We've been sculpting soap like Michaelangelo, well I don't think he used soap but we did ;o)

We played a few games of 'Smath' last week along with Cludeo, Guess Who and Boggle

My son has finished converting a lapbook into a digi-lapbook on The Normans: http://www.rkwebcreations.co.uk/digi/users/knxrb/The%20Normans.html just click on the coloured boxes for all to be revealed.

Maths and Cells Lapbooks

Half Term flew by in a flurry of planning and making this fabulous lapbook from Notebooking2learn. Heartfelt thanks go to Jessica as she's done all the hard work really, I've just copied them and stuck them together, but my daughter loves them!

I've always used lapbooks as a review of the topic studied, but this is to be used as a learning tool and so far so good; my daughter is asking to play the maths games and learning her tables, it's really great!

This side contains multiplication flashcards for 7-12 and a reminder for what factors and multiples are.

The middle section has domino multiplication (well worth the cutting out), dice multiplication game and Mingo (multiplication Bingo).

This is the first flap (for some reason I've put the photos up in the wrong order) it has the flashcards for 1-6.

This has been such a success at our house that I've also made a lapbook for Cells which my daughter has been working through over the last week. Below are the photos starting with the front cover which my youngest decorated with a plant cell.

This side has a matching game and flaps about the differences between plant and animal cells.

The middle flap has a microscope picture with a labelling game and different kinds of cells and their functions.

I used sticky back velcro on the right side so that my youngest could learn about 'Mrs Gren' Life Processes.

Also went to a fabulous firework display with the grandparents in Blyth, to the Cinema with Grace to see High School Musical 3, shoe shopping, painting window stickers, a lie down painting like Michaelangelo, making jewellery ready for Christmas and doing boxes for Romania as well as the usual activities at church, so all in all a good couple of weeks I think.

Book Launch

We met up with lots of home educators when we went to a fellow home educators book launch for walking with witches last week. It's a story based in Newcastle, set in 1600's about witches being burnt on the town moor.

We highly recommend the book not only because it's a good read (and written by a friend), but also because my youngest daughter is a character in it, along with lots of other home educated children.

Decisions, Decisions

After careful thought and consideration we have decided to stop using the Sonlight schedule. It just isn't us, we jump around too much for that :o) We love the books and are continuing to read them but at our pace. We all feel much happier about our home educating since we came to this decision.

Recently we have been studying the Tudors. Since we already have a lapbook here my youngest decided to make a costume instead, along with wax letter seals and a marzipan Tudor Rose. We've been reading from SOTW and Our Island Story, as well as a Tudor craft book below.

We have been studying Microbes in Science for the past two weeks which has involved lots of experiments - mainly leaving lots of food to rot in the kitchen...

We are continuing with Maths2XL and workbooks for English and each week we will be studying a different artist; last week was Botticelli, week before that was Duccio and Giotto, and Michaelangelo is this week.

One more thing: I'm going to try and write in here on a weekly basis. I thought if I put that in then I might achieve it :o)

Egyptians Lapbook

Youngest daughter finished her Egyptian mummies lapbook from Hands of a Child.

She used water colour pencils to add a little colour, and made mummy masks using Barbie's head as the model.

The Normans Lapbook

Well, my youngest finished this lapbook during the school hols (I think), but it's taken a while for me to upload them. I see this as a good start to October, long may it continue!!

I love the front of this one, as it is so colourful, but the photo just hasn't done it justice so you'll have to take my word for it.

This page focussed on the Battle of Hastings and vocabulary to learn.

This was about the various castles around during the Norman period and how best to attack them. I got the sheet from a history site on the internet.

A fold out booklet on the Feudal system.

There is a little writing about the three sons under each flap with a picture of King William in the centre.

Day Out

Finally uploaded piccies from our day out a few weeks ago. Unfortunately we couldn't eat any of the cooked food for health and safety reasons, even though the Medieval people ate it all the time!

New 'School' Year

Finally sorted the problems out and can now get back in and post, well that's not strictly true, hubby to the rescue... and now I can finally post!

The new 'school' year has started rather slowly, what with an LA meeting in the first week back and hubby on his hols from work the second and third weeks, we haven't really got down to work at all. We are supposed to be giving Sonlight a 'go' but I'm having trouble implementing a schedule and sticking to it; life just keeps getting in the way!

We've been to the Life Museum though, which was lots of fun as they have a healthy bodies section where you give yourself an overall health check and watched the summer sky, stars and planets in the Dome, this went very well with daughter's Astronomy lapbook she's doing at the moment.

We've been to the beach a few times too, yes there has been a few days without rain during September :o)

We visited a living archeology day during the Heritage Open Days based on the medieval time period. We learnt how to make tallow candles and watched a short play on Saint George and the Dragon. This was really good fun for all the family.

I'll upload the piccies when they are off the camera.

We've also been helping our eldest daughter set up her business and visiting the grandparents (which was lovely as we don't get to see them very often) but with all this going on, I wonder just when I'm supposed to start the new curriculum!

Have been a way for a while to Holy Island, Delemere Forest and the East Coast to aid our Medieval studies so lapbooking has been to a minimum but I will post up the piccies when I have more time.

In the mean time my son has been working on another digi-lapbook. He's also developed an application that allows other children to make digi-lapbooks (like his) on their own.
Please take a look at his digi-lapbook example which he made using the application.
The flash is high quality at the moment so it may be slow. My son says he will sort it out later this evening so that it's faster but I couldn't wait to show it off :o)

http://www.rkwebcreations.co.uk/digi/v&e/volcanoes%20and%20earthquakes.html

Heart Lapbook

Had a lovely bank holiday weekend; spent most of it in the garden either replanting/weeding or lazing in the sun! Here's my daughter's rabbit sitting on his hutch enjoying the sun too.

Below is my son's experiment: he left an orange out in glass and we watched the mould grow. It looked very fuzzy and hairy but you can't really tell from the photo.

We all finished the heart lapbook this week too, yes it was a joint effort in the end as it had been hanging around for a while and just wasn't getting done so I ended up putting the velcro on bits and pieces to get it finished. My daughter decorated the outside and they both finished off the questions. It was a freebie from Knowledge Box Central I think, it was so long ago that I can't really remember.

The flap above was added by us as the lapbook didn't have anything in it about 'the parts of the blood' something that I felt was pretty important considering they were studying the heart!




The two photos above were taken of the 'naming the parts of the heart' and 'naming the flow of the blood through the heart' game.