Remember our page-a -day art calendar? We are finally on the flip side of the pages now that half of the year is gone.

Yesterday  we came upon a Greek amphora in the calendar. What a great time to do some review! This year our history focus is ancient civilizations, so we’ll be covering Ancient Greece in a few months. I pulled out Sprite’s Ancient Greece lapbook made in her first grade year.

She laughed at her handwriting, coloring, and writing. It was fun for her (and me) to see her progress over these years by remembering the simplistic way she wrote then. She read through all the minibooks and got a little Ancient Greece review in the bargain.

Sure enough, we found the minibook about Greek pottery. And there was the amphora, defined for us.

We’ve really enjoyed the art calendar, and I think I’m going to go ahead and buy the 2011 one soon. Amazon usually sells out before the new year comes, and I don’t want to miss out. I love it when a tool is such an eclectic mix — art, artist study, history, and geography. There are constant opportunities for review and new learning.

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Another period of history is complete; this time it’s World War 1.

We used the Eyewitness WW1 book as our main resource, and I pulled a few chapters from True Stories of the First World War. The stories were not as good as I’d hoped. They had more of a textbook style than narrative style. Some of the stories dragged on and on… like the war, I guess. I had planned to read all of the book, but because of the style, I picked the best, most engaging stories instead.

For notebooking, we used quite a few pages from the History Scribe Combo I bought way back here. (I’m so getting my money’s worth out of that purchase.)

I found some fabulous printable resources at Schoolhistory.co.uk. The site is a tad difficult to navigate, so I’m going to give you two links to get you started: WW1 Worksheets and Grade 9 WW1 Worksheets. Don’t let the grade 9 scare you. I found several things that were prefect for 5th grade Sprite. The map on the right is an example of what is offered there, all in PDF.

And Teacheroz.com has some wonderful WW1 maps. I’m a firm believer in having a map handy during history studies (as well as other subjects). Otherwise, it’s so hard to visualize what you’re studying. The Eyewitness WW1 book is good, but it is really lacking in maps, in my opinion. We referred time and time again to the Western Front map glued onto the blue notebooking page to the left.

The PBS site was helpful in this regard too since it has some interactive diagrams showing battles and the frontlines.
Some more notebooking pages:

As it turned out, my initial plans to create a lapbook changed. So although I found these neat printables, we didn’t even use them. I’ll add them here for YOU!

Free Printable Templates

1. Free templates for minibooks related to WW1 and WW2.
2. Templates for WWI- German Aircraft minibooks.
3. Free sample from A Journey Through Learning –shutterfold minibook template including the two sides that fought in WW1.

And here are thumbnails of some additional websites that looked very promising:

Worksheets

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My art lesson is held in a rooftop studio where my teacher’s husband raises chickens and pigeons in pens nearby. Sprite loves to go with me and help “Pigeon King” care for the birds. He confided in her one day that of all the young students my art teacher has taught over the years, Sprite is the only child who has ever taken a real interest in the birds and has not been afraid to enter the pigeon coop. (That made me sad for the children who are missing out, but glad for Sprite’s love of nature.)

Part of my learning goals for Sprite this year (5th grade) is that she grow in independent studies. So I took a natural interest — the pigeons — and gave her a research assignment. (Hat tip to Cindy and her project based learning; I also found Camp Creek Blog very helpful in moving my mental gears.)

She chose to create a lapbook to demonstrate what she learned from her own observations of the pigeons and from her interviews of the “Pigeon King.”

I was amazed at her thoughtfulness and attention to detail in the project. Giving a child a topic that fascinates her is truly valuable!

At the beginning of the project, I did sit down with her and give her some tips for how to outline the project. She caught on quickly and shooed me away so she could plan. I wish I had photos of her prewriting, but she loves to cross things out as she completes them. So as she moved from prewriting to the minibooks, she made a mess of the planning pages.

She listed topics to cover in her research, wrote down what she already knew, listed things to ask the “Pigeon King,” and made notes of photos to take. She took the photographs, selected ones to print (on sticky backed paper), and designed the pigeon coop layout. ALL by herself! Interspersed among the facts in her minibooks, she drew humorous cartoons. She asked me to help her figure the dimensions of the minibooks and to cut the paper, but that was my sole contribution.

To say that I’m pleased with her project is an understatement. I can’t wait to show the “Pigeon King” on Friday. All the photos are at Pigeon Lapbook at Flickr.

I can’t help but think that the years of making lapbooks together has helped this very visual child to see the outlining and organizational process needed for a research project. Now she’s making lapbooks all on her own.

For more pigeon resources, visit Happy Hearts at Home blog.

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Evan Moor’s History Pockets: Moving West, Grades 4-6 is part of our Winter Promise (American Story 2) curriculum. History Pockets work well for people like us who enjoy paper crafts and lapbooking. Here is the book and our pocket.

I mostly made it part of Sprite’s “On My Own” work. Each week I give her page numbers, and I let her choose which of the activities she’d like to photocopy and complete. Some of the reproducibles are more interesting than others.

I was a tad disappointed in the amount of reading pages in the History Pocket. You copy them, affix them to cardstock and read them. Not very interactive, but I used them as a chance for Sprite to practice identifying key points with a highlighter.

We use lots of living books in our studies, so reading information on reproducible pages is not necessary for us. I guess that if one used History Pockets as a stand alone curriculum/unit study, the factual pages would be essential. At any rate, we chose only the most interesting and relevant pages to read.

There were quite a few fun activities that you can see here — a quilting craft, a buffalo, a covered wagon shape book, a trunk, an animal mobile (that we converted to a minibook), a pop up train, and a poem. These are the parts Sprite enjoys the most.

There are also a timeline and a mapping activity included.

Overall, I find History Pockets a worthwhile supplement for a child who likes papercrafts. Like anything, we pick and choose which to do and what to omit. I plan to use the grades 4-6 Ancient Rome, Greece, and Egypt History Pockets next year.

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We’ve chosen Giuseppe Verdi as our composer of the term, and Verdi means opera!

I bought this opera DVD (pirated, shhhh….) for less than $2 –Verdi’s Il Trovatore , Metropolitan Opera (1988).   I have to admit, it was my first exposure, ever, to opera. And surprisingly, Sprite and I both liked it!

Granted, it’s totally different from anything we’d ever seen before. Of course there’s the BIG singing, the fancy costumes, and the stage set. We expected all that. What was new to us was the lack of action. The entire story is not just sung but told through song. I mean, when the two men duel, there is aggressive singing back and forth and then literally one strike with the sword and it’s over. The physical action is more symbolic than anything else. The words and the music are what tell the story.

I guess that I have probably read that somewhere about opera. But without seeing it, I just didn’t understand. Thank goodness for the (pirated) DVD recording. Without it, our understanding of opera would be quite deficient. Living books are good for most learning, but some things must be seen, touched, heard, and felt. Opera is obviously one of them.

Then we watched Verdi’s Otello (Othello), also by the Metropolitan Opera. This one was doubly good. First of all it was Shakespeare. (That means I checked off both Shakespeare and composer study in one fell swoop. Yes, I love marking things off my list!) Secondly it was much more engaging as far as action. The characters moved about on stage and physically interacted far more than our first opera.

Oh, the story of Othello is terribly sad, a true tragedy which the music accompaniment heightens considerably. And what a lesson about jealousy, about choosing friends carefully, and about open communication.  So it’s all a fabulous learning opportunity. Although the story was much darker, Sprite and I preferred Otello to Il Trovadore.

In true Charlotte Mason form, the focus is on the music, not the composer himself. So we’ve done nothing about Verdi the man yet, but I plan to let Sprite read this biographical sketch  at Lesson Snips.  We also have an audio CD about Verdi that we’ll listen to and take notes on. But for now, we’re enjoying the operas. We still have one more to go, Falstaff (based on a Shakespearean character).

If you want the nitty gritty, you can visit Giuseppe Verdi Composer Study where it’s all laid out in detail. (Notebooking pages and a minibook too.)

And here’s a simple lapbook we did about opera. I even made the minibooks into templates which I printed and gave to Sprite. This is not our usual way of creating a lapbook. But I believe in variety.

Opera Lapbook Cover

Opera Lapbook Open

And all the printables for the minibooks can be found both on my HSLaunch page and on this Squidoo lens — Opera for Children (which links to the resources you need to fill in the minibooks).

Here are a few glimpses of a few of the minibooks. It’s a simple lapbook with only eight minibooks. And we did the whole thing in a week. That’s not our lapbooking norm either, but it’s good to make a quickie every now and then. My point was to reinforce the key aspects of opera, not to drag it out into a full length unit study. So this worked well.

For more photos, visit the Flickr Set of Opera Lapbook pics.

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We’ve finally wrapped up the Civil War! It took us over two months to cover what Winter Promise had assigned for a mere six weeks. (Too many interruptions lately — mostly traveling and sickness. Ah, well, this is why we homeschool.)

Civil War Lapbook

We used these resources inside the lapbook:

• RETAIL (bought at Currclick)–Hands-On History: Civil War
• RETAIL (bought at Currclick)–Scribe System – History Scribe Combo which includes a section on The Civil War
• FREE–Homeschool Share Presidents Lapbook – Lincoln layered book
• FREE–sample from HTTA Civil War Time Traveler
• RETAIL (part of Winter Promise curriculum)–Interactive 3-D Maps: American History (Scholastic)

Here’s a great link which we didn’t use simply because we had enough things already — Dynamic Moms War Between the States Lapbook.

The whole set of Civil War lapbook pics are here at Flickr.

The large, light yellow shutterfold started out as a notebooking page. But we kept adding information until it grew two flaps. And then we decided to treat is as a large minibook and as a flap on the lapbook. The back of this book holds two more minibooks.

Our Favorite Civil War Living Books:

• Ghosts of the Civil War by Cheryl Harness.  Sprite loved the graphical format of this picture book.
• The Civil War for Kids by Janis Herbert. This was Sprite’s first history book to be read alone. A milestone!
• Behind Rebel Lines: The Incredible Story of Emma Edmonds, Civil War Spy by Seymore Reit. This one starts out dull, but keep reading! It’s quite suspenseful. Of course, a female soldier and spy really intrigued Sprite.
• Bull Run by Paul Fleischman (a Scott O’Dell Award book) which we downloaded as an audio book from Audible.com at Sandwich’s recommendation. Great call, Sandwich! This was fantastic! And I know I’ll be buying more books from Audible in the future.

Websites:

Winter Promise gives websites each week to go along with the curriculum. I put them all together here - Winter Promise American Story 2 Links for convenience.

Notebooking:

For the notebooking pages, we put them into sheet protectors and affixed them to the lapbook with paper brads. You can see the brads on the cover.

And that wraps it up! Next we’ll be on the wagon train, delving into Westward Expansion.

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Here is a list of some neat lapbooking links I’ve found within the last month. Enjoy browsing!

Handle on the Arts Lapbooks

Retail kits but some are currently offered for FREE.

Biblical (Jewish) Lapbooks

retail lapbook kits

Lapbooking Templates from That Resource Site

This site obviously used to be accessible by subscription but is now free. Have fun exploring! There’s a lot there.

Evan Moor History Pockets — REVIEW

Are history pockets as good as everyone says? Read this review to see for yourself. There are lots of photos.

Triangle Lapbook

Proof that any topic can be lapbooked and any level child can make a lapbook. (This post was featured in the Charlotte Mason Carnival, but I love this concept so much, I want to share it again.)

Multiplication Lapbook

I love the idea of lapbooking math. Can you tell?

Lapbook Register

a free form for recording the lapbooks you create.

Gidget’s Homeschool Share Page

lots of free minibook templates here

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Sprite with Elements Lapbook

We assembled another lapbook this week. We’ve been collecting these minibooks for several months now. Sprite does a few minibooks each week, usually after a science lesson as her narration activity.

We took pics outside when we went to free our latest nature study object — a grasshopper.

For the cover, Sprite made a drawing of Mendeleev working on the Periodic Table of the Elements. We loved her drawing so much that I scanned it and printed it out rather than use the original on the lapbook.

The whole set of pics can be found at Flickr.

Elements Lapbook

Super Long Accordion Book

Some of what we used can be found linked at Chemistry Lapbook.

But the vast majority of the minibooks came from blanks that I prepared beforehand. Sprite chose whichever one best suited the information she wanted to record. I find that lapbooking in this way is really the simplest and most creative method. I don’t have to spend a lot of time creating or printing out fancy templates with clipart and such. I just offer blank books to be filled in by Sprite.

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Ziplock Full of Blank Minibooks

In getting ready to go “back to homeschool,” I decided to spend a few hours making minibooks one afternoon when my husband took Sprite to the pool. It was time well spent. Now I have quite an assortment of sizes, colors, and shapes for Sprite to use for the next few months.

We certainly do plenty of “fly by the seat of your pants” homeschooling, but I also love the feeling of having supplies ready to go. Just looking at that bulging ziplock full of possibilities makes me giddy.

Sprite saw it and said, “Wow! Mom, you made a TON of minibooks!” As she flipped through the new styles, I gave her an evil laugh and told her that I was intending for her to do lots and lots of written narrations this year.

So what was my plan of attack? First I used Microsoft Publisher to make some templates that I printed onto white cardstock. Then I cut out my templates and used them with all colors of paper to make the blank minibooks.

Templates

This is a new style — a speech bubble shaped trifold, simple single fold, and shape book. I thought it would be perfect for quotations or narrating what a certain person taught or discovered.

Quotation Bubble Books

Another new design is this arrow tab. I was inspired by something uploaded at Homeschool Share’s NEW printables.

Arrow Tabbed Books

Accordion folds are such adaptable minibooks, so I made lots of these.

Hexagon Books

To make a template, just copy and paste your shape, lining up the sides of same lengths.

Shaped Accordion Templates

Hexagon Minibooks

Trapezoid Accordion Books

And here are old standbys that I created without templates.

Flag books &    layered books.

Matchbooks &    envelope books.

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Sprite with Solar Eclipse Lapbook

When we started using lapbooks in Kindergarten, I didn’t know if we’d continue using them throughout the years or if lapbooking would taper off. At one point I thought we’d transition solely to notebooking. But Sprite still enjoys making minibooks, so we haven’t given up lapbooks altogether. Sometimes we mix up lapbooking and notebooking, too.

Yesterday was a good example of another lapbooking transition. I asked Sprite how she would like to narrate her solar eclipse experience, and she chose making a lapbook.

To give her a bit of structure, I listed five questions she should address in some way:

1.  What is a solar eclipse?

2.  What are the stages in a solar eclipse?

3.  How should you watch an eclipse?

4.  What parts of China could see the eclipse?

5.  What did you experience today, July 22, 2009?

She used newspaper clippings, blank minibooks that I’d already prepared, and her own creativity to devise with this simple lapbook.

Cover of Solar Eclipse Lapbook

Inside of Solar Eclipse Lapbook

How to Watch an Eclipse

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