Walt Disney World Lapbook

Our family is going on vacation to the "happiest place on earth": so me, being me, wanted to squeeze every bit of possible learning out of the trip. I decided to do a lapbook that focused on Walt Disney the person and Disney World the place. I used my old favorite: homeschoolhelper for the templates and I just surfed the web to see what information was out there.

I found this great little site with all kids of printable coloring pages and other gems:http://disney-stationary.com/coloring-book/Disneyland-DisneyWorld.php. I used things from this site to make our cover and the books (on the different parks) on the last page of the lapbook.

I used some of the information that I found on the sites listed below as a basis for my books. I made a book for each of the following topics: the life of Walt Disney, Disney Timeline, Quotes from Walt Disney, The World's Fair and Walt Disney, Animation, the History of Walt Disney World, the different parks in Disney World, and Disney Facts.

http://ezinearticles.com/?History-of-Disney-World---How-Walt-Disney-World-Came-About&id=1126162

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney

http://www.norsknettskole.no/fag/ressurser/itstud/fuv/gunnargrodal/bio.htm
http://www.justdisney.com/walt_disney/quotes/quotes01.html

http://www.justdisney.com/walt_disney/timeline/index.html
http://www.socialstudiesforkids.com/articles/ushistory/mickeymouse.htm
http://www.mickey-mouse.com/themouse.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animation
http://www.hiddenmickeys.org/Secrets.html

I also had the kids make a flip book from this these sites so that they could see how animation works ( at least before computers!).

http://familycrafts.about.com/library/projects/blflipface.htm

http://pbskids.org/sagwa/color/flipbook/index.html

On the next section of the lapbook I have a book on Disney Technology and one on Disney Movie making.

technology- http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2005/10/69297

movie making-http://fromscripttodvd.com/disney_animated_features.htm

http://movies.lovetoknow.com/wiki/Disney_Movie_Scripts

Also in this section I have a Disney Cast Member ID badge that I found and printed and then cut and pasted my child's name onto it:http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l206/Liljeepz/dexter/banner2a1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php%3Ft%3D1889468%26referrerid%3D93883&usg=__JDBy7JFX3j7znxpqscbJVK0kYr0=&h=197&w=800&sz=135&hl=en&start=7&sig2=ytkts4XmQYcdpTnI1JFuGg&tbnid=R-hVUPeIUp62rM:&tbnh=35&tbnw=143&ei=u1iLSfadF5XlmQfR76Q0&prev=/images%3Fq%3Ddisney%2Bworld%2Bcast%2Bmember%2Bname%2Btag%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX

Finally, the last section is where we have books on each of the four parks at Disney World: Animal Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios, and Magic Kingdom. My idea is that after we get all of our pictures developed, the kids will put their favorite memories in the corresponding books.

It was a lot of fun putting it together and I hope that it will be helpful for others. I also found some great printable coloring pages with Mickey and the gang that would be fun to color in the car on the way there:http://coloringpages.nick-magic.com/mickeymouse.html.

Grammar Lapbook

I am an English teacher by training and I am always curious about different ways to teach grammar. Primarily, I taught high school students ( mostly 12th graders) and it always puzzled me that majority of the average to below average students did not know their grammar AT ALL. I would say quietly to myself- "How did you ever get this far?". After having my three kids and watching Kid #1 go to 1st grade in public school, I began to wonder about this even more. My son would have mounds of GRAMMAR homework in the 1st grade - the same basic concepts that those 12th graders had not mastered!

Anyway, I will step off the soapbox. Now that I am schooling my own children I can teach the way I think works best. Now for middle and high schoolers, I believe that integrating grammar instruction into their actual writing is the way to go, but I believe that in the younger grades you can provide a basic foundation of concepts. The way that I am going to do this is with a variation of manipulatives. This is where my lapbook idea comes in to play. I had these pocket word cards that I bought from the Schoolbox store and I thought it would be great to teach the parts of speech using these cards.

For the lapbook, I used large matchbook templates from Homeschoolshare and made one for each major part of speech. I then tried to divide up the word cards into the pockets.

I used the idea of a mini office type lapbook that I saw on Lapbook Lessons to make a large pocket in the middle of the lapbook to put various sheets that I created that mimic a sentence diagram. I made a lot of variations that could be used with different types of sentences ( simple, compound nouns, or compound verbs).

What I am going to do with my kids is have them create their own sentences and then pick out the different parts of speech and figure out where they go on the sentence diagram. I feel that this will help my hands on learners and make grammar a little more than book work.

Again this is my theory on grammar instruction and I will have to wait a few years to see if it works!:)

Safari Lapbook

My youngest child is wild about animals. His primary interest is in the animals from Africa. While I was trying to create the different lapbooks for my other kids, he wanted one for himself. After some thought, he decided that he wanted a "Safari Lapbook". Well, I wasn't sure what that exactly was but I tried to put together a little something that could pass as a safari lapbook.

Since most of the animals that he is interested in reside in Africa, I first started with a map of Africa with each country defined. I got this map from a Google images search of "map of Africa". My original concept was to have the map of Africa in the middle and have a pocket for various countries that held some of the animals found in those countries. I thought for a while about how to arrange the file folders to accommodate such a large space and then decided to make use of that extra poster board in the closet!:)

When you open the lapbook I wanted to have something where we could talk about how you get to Africa. I wanted to make sure he understood that it is not down the street!:) I used a lapbook template from Homeschoolshare http://www.homeschoolshare.com/lapbooking_resources.php#Templates_Listed_by_Divisions_)

and Google images for the clip art safari guide.

After further opening the book, you will find a T book where we highlighted the "big five" animals found in Africa. Again I used a template for the book from Homeschoolshare and Google images for the pictures of the animals. Son #3 cut and pasted these in place. I had fun making the little road for this section. Silly, I know, because I am not sure there is actually black top roads in the safari but it is cute in the book! I used actual street signs from Africa for the street signs along the road. Again, Google images helped me out there.

Now for the main part- when the lapbook is fully opened you can see the map of Africa and the large matchbooks for the various countries. No rhyme or reason for my selection of the countries. Many I chose them so that I could spread them out around the map. I used a couple of great sites for the animal images. Majority of them were from the country I was focusing on for that matchbook.

http://www.africaguide.com/wildlife/index.htm

http://www.animalinfo.org/country/chad.htm

http://www.animalinfo.org/country/nigeria.htm

http://www.sa-venues.com/wildlife/wildlife_crocodile.htm

http://www.kenyatravelideas.com/kenya-animals.html

http://www.sa-venues.com/wildlife/

http://www.wildmadagascar.org/wildlife/animals.html

http://www.wildegypt.com/

http://www.selamta.net/wildlife.htm

Ultimately, my goal is for Son #3 to write about each animal on the back of their card. Hopefully, as we continue in our geography studies, we can add more animals and maybe more countries.

Football Lapbook

I know it seems odd to create a football lapbook but frankly I have to do whatever I can to interest Kid #1. Right now he is very interested in college and professional football. Whenever we are riding in the car he asks me a thousand questions about rules, positions and players- of course, I have no idea what he is talking about half of the time. So, I have finally completed a football lapbook in hopes that he can teach himself all about football and its rules.

I used mini matchbooks to help him understand the offensive and defensive positions.I used the "Who?Where?" book for him to write about the history of football. The Shutter book has a few football terms that seem to be used a lot that he can define.

In the middle of this section I have placed this great folder game called Eduball that I got for this site:http://www.teachertools.org/games_dynam.asp. The top of the folder is like a pocket and in it I have multiplication fact cards for him to use with the game.

In this section I have a place for him to keep pictures of his favorite players. This was very easy to find using Google Images.

On this page I focused on the referees of the game. There always seem to be so many officials in a football game and I thought it would be good for him to learn who they are and their jobs. The wheel book lists the different positions and the graduated book lists the duties of each position. At the top of this page you can find a book with the rules of football.

For the book templates I used :http://www.homeschoolshare.com/lapbooking_resources.php#Templates_Listed_by_Divisions_

For the football information I used: http://football.about.com/od/footballpositions/Football_Positions.htm

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/25/American_Football_Positions.svg/604px-American_Football_Positions.svg.png

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_(American_football)

http://football.about.com/od/football101/l/bl_glossary.htm

For the flashcards: http://www.multiplication.com/flashcards.htm

Kid #1 was so excited about this and he cannot wait to finish his guitar lapbook (below) so that he can get started on this one!:) Yeah Mom!!!

Guitar Lapbook

After a friend introduced Kid#1 to Guitar Hero (much to my disappointment:)), he has been very interested in all types of guitars. Since this is all I hear about daily, I decided why not let him learn about guitars instead of just talking about them all of the time!

First, I made a list of all of the different aspects of guitars and tried to find information about them on the Internet. I found some great sites with lots of information: http://www.guitaralliance.com/ andhttp://www.gutairsland.com/. Secondly, as you can see, I made sections on the history of guitars (who?what?), the guitar family (wheel), guitar vocabulary (shutterfold), Electric vs. Acoustic (Venn diagram), How to play guitar chords and Famous guitarists (graduated book), diagram of guitar parts, and descriptions of the different categories of guitars (large matchbooks). To indulge my brillant engineer hubby, I included the physics of the guitar!:) All of the templates I got off of http://www.homeschoolshare.com/lapbooking_resources.php#Templates_Listed_by_Divisions_.

The blackened guitar images I copied from http://www.onyxforgeguitars.com/guitar%20shapes.html.

Needless to say, Kid #1 was thrilled beyond words and I don't even have to push him to look up all of the information to fill in the books. He wants to do it!:) Praise the Lord!

Sarah Palin

I am a little late in posting this, but on December 1st the kids and I went to see Sarah Palin campaigning for our local Congressman Saxby Chambliss. Frankly, I could not believe I was there, but my husband urged me to take the kids so that they could take advantage of seeing Sarah Palin speak. We were VERY early and were about the 50th person in line to get in and then it started to snow! IN GEORGIA! So, after about an hour of snow, it finally stopped and just became down right cold! By the time I was good and frozen, they let the line form inside the arena waiting area. Being warm really made the time go by faster!

When they opened the doors so that we could begin seating, it was like a rock concert from my youth!:) All of these old people:) started pushing forward with no consideration of a line at all! Finally, I had to start yelling because I thought that I might become separated from my kids, not to mention that if they, by chance, fell they could be trampled! It was very alarming. When we got into the arena, I insisted that we sit in the stands and not stand on the floor in front of the stage because I was afraid of what these crazy, old, Republicans would do!:) I guess everyone was just very excited to see Sarah Palin, as were we I must admit.

After waiting 3 + hours, the show began with John Linder, Johnny Isackson, and Saxby Chambliss. Then came the main attraction- Sarah Palin! I must admit it was great to see her in person. I hate to say things like this but it seemed like I was watching someone who was destined to make a change in our world. It was pretty cool.

Well, having learned from the earlier stampede, I decided to get out of there as quickly as possible so we left before the speeches were over. It was a little hairy but I am glad that the kids got to see Sarah Palin in the flesh and even more glad that we made it out alive!:)

WebKinz Lapbook

Okay- I finally gave in to the tsunami that is WebKinz! Kid #2 loves WebKinz and has way too many of them, so I decided to try to create a WebKinz lapbook for her. I found a website that had coloring pages for the cover (http://www.wacky-packages.org/how-to-draw-webkinz/webkinz-coloring-pages.htm. First, I had her choose her favorite ten WebKinz. I used the index card lapbook templates from Homeschoolhelper (http://www.homeschoolhelperonline.com/lapbooks.htm) and then I copied the pictures of her favorites from the Ganz website. For the different pages of the index cards I choose to have her write the WebKinz facts (W Facts) for the animal and then on the next card the "real" animal facts (Animal Facts).

Secondly, I created a Quizzy' Question Corner out of the matchbook template from Homeschoolhelper.com, and for the questions I used the fan book template. I just wrote questions that pertained to what we are learning right now. Then I created a Wheel of Wow using the wheel template from Homeschoolhelper.com. I just choose the prizes based on what I have heard the kids talking about when they play WebKinz.

Finally, I had some room left on the lapbook and I asked Kid#2 what else I could put in the book that would interest her. She really wanted a Gem Hunt, which of course I had to create from scratch. To do this I used Word and created this picture. Under the "rocks" I placed different colored shapes with two digit numbers written on them. The instructions for the game are for her to find two gems and then add the numbers together. We are working on addition of two digit number right now and this gives her a little added practice.

After we got it all together, she was anxious to show Dad, her brothers, and even in the neighbor!