Epcot Lapbook

In my house, we are a little Mickey crazy!:) I grew up in Florida and although my parents did not have much money, I went to Disney with my summer daycare just about every summer. Of course, I think it was a lot cheaper back in those days. My last summer was the first year that Epcot was open, and I really did not like it. It was too educational for my young tastes!:) I have never been back to Epcot.

Now that I am a parent and we are looking at going to Disney, I really want to see Epcot again. I know that a lot has changed of the last twenty-five years and I want to see it all! Of course, I cannot miss and opportunity to hijack a vacation with a little education!:) I create a very basic lap book to proceed our visit to Epcot.

Since we are focusing on World Geography at our co-op. I decided to focus on that aspect of Epcot. I looked at the Disney web site and read through each country description of the World Showcase. I tried to highlight some of the aspects of each country that I could investigate with the kids before we arrive. My hope is that by familiarizing the kids with these things ahead of time, they will recognize them when we are in Epcot and the experience will be more educationally meaningful for them. If they can see past Mickey's big ears!:)


Here is the original post that I did on my Walt Disney World Lap book that we did last year. It has a lot more of the basics for Disney. I also have a number of great links for information about Disney World. Also, Crayola has a great site for coloring pages. That is where I copied off the country pages for this lapbook.

http://trying2walkwisely.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html

Aquarium Lapbook

My kids love the Aquarium! They could sit and stare at those fish all day long. I really enjoy watching the fish in the Ocean Explorer exhibit the most. It seems so peaceful to watch those giants swim slowly by you. You see the beauty in their design.

We are going to the Aquarium in a few weeks and traditionally we just go and look at the fish and then go home. This year I really wanted to suck the educational life out of our trip!:) So, I create a lap book to go with the different exhibits at the Aquarium. The Aquarium website was a wealth of information as I set out to design the lap book. I settled on creating a double page spread with the exhibit habitat as the background. Then I created mini books featuring some of the animals that the Aquarium has located in this specific habitat.

As far as information for the filling in of the mini books, I have thought of several options for completing that portion. First, I created inserts that can be cut and pasted into the books for younger children. Secondly, I thought that you could use those same pieces to create a type of matching game after your Aquarium visit. Lastly, I thought that we could bring the unfinished lap book along on the trip and the kids could go on a scavenger hunt for these animals and then when they have found them, fill in the books with their observations of the animals. I believe that any of these options could be fun for them and a learning experience. Perhaps you could chose the option that best fits their ability level.

I feel that to optimize the educational opportunities that a field trip can bring you need to give your students background information that they can use as a "hanger", so to speak, for the new knowledge that they will gain during the trip. It is a thrill to see their little faces light up when they discover something during the trip that they have learned at home. They look at you as if to say "it really is true!" You could use books, movies, or Internet sites to provide this background "hanger" for them.

Here are a few that I suggest:

http://www.gamequarium.org/dir/SqoolTube_Videos/Science/Animals/
http://www.mbgnet.net/
http://www.sciencenetlinks.com/interactives/class.html
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Animals/
http://www.jdp.co.uk/
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/
http://www.scienceandthesea.org/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1
http://www.thewildclassroom.com/
http://www.kidzone.ws/sharks/
http://kids.discovery.com/fansites/kennytheshark/kennytheshark.html
http://www.sharky-jones.com/
http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/explore/oceancreatures.htm
http://www.funtrivia.com/trivia-quiz/ForChildren/Marine-Biology-Fun-Facts-305633.html
http://www.suffolk.lib.ny.us/youth/jcsmarine.htm
http://www.fishid.com/facts.htm
http://www.georgiaaquarium.org/
http://www.tnaqua.org/Home.aspx
http://www.neaq.org/index.php
http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/
http://www.aqua.org/

Art Exploration Co-op Curriculum and Lapbook

This is phase two of my curriculum creations for our co-op this semester. The ladies in our leadership group decided for our co-op to do an art class this semester. We did not want just any kind of art class. We wanted an art class that touched on art history as well as hands-on art activities. The curriculum and corresponding lapbook are my attempts to touch on all of the areas that these ladies wanted to explore in our art curriculum this year.

I decided to hit a few of the major artists- there are so many! I chose Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso, Warhol, and Pollock because of their vast differences from each other.

The lapbook and curriculum begin with mini books on the elements of art and mediums of art. The kids did a great edible color wheel project that I found on http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/elem/elemlessons.html. This is a great art lesson plan site. I found many of the hands-on activities that we will be doing on this site.

After this lesson, we get into the nuts and bolts, so to speak, of the art history. Every two weeks or so the kids learn about a new artist, their movement, and their famous works. I created mini books to go along with each of these aspects. One week they learn about the artist, etc and then the next week the create a masterpiece of their own based upon one of the artist's own masterpieces.

Here is an example of the kids' rendition of Monet's "Waterlilies".

We are culminating our co-op study with a visit to the local art museum for a Da Vinci exhibit.

Here are some of the web sites that I found during my research that are just awesome! I hope you have fun exploring!:)

Art Exploration

http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/elem/elemlessons.html - great lessons (we incorporated some of them)
http://homeschool.withpurpose.com/category/fine-arts/art/- plans
http://www.moma.org/wifi- Museum of Modern Art audio tours
http://pixilatedschoolnotes.blogspot.com/2007/09/learning-about-art-van-gogh.html- Van Gogh
http://ebeth.typepad.com/serendipity/2008/07/a-is-for-art.html- blog with a lot of great links on Da Vinci
http://www.alifetimeofcolor.com/play/leonardo/index.html- Da Vinci
http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/links/artgames.html- activities and games
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/- encyclopedia of artists and movements
http://www.donnayoung.org/art/draw1.htm- drawing class
http://www.kinderart.com/arthistory/- links to other art sites
http://www.artprojectsforkids.org/search/label/2nd%20grade - blog with great art projects
http://www.homeschoolinthewoods.com/WebLinks/weblinks-artmusicpoetry.htm - art links
http://gardenofpraise.com/art.htm- lessons on famous paintings
http://www.notebookingpages.com/index.php?page=Free-Art-Music-Notebooking-Pages- notebooking pages
http://lifeisnotacereal.blogspot.com/2008/12/primary-level-artist-appreciation.html- 36 week art curriculum
http://picturingamerica.neh.gov/- famous American artists
http://www.lessonplanspage.com/Art45.htm- lessons
http://locicero.net/teachrembrandt/ - Rembrandt Teaching Project
http://school.discoveryeducation.com/lessonplans/programs/da_rembrandt/- Rembrandt lesson plans
http://tagfoot.com/jimmie/bookmarks/artiststudy - bookmarks to more sites
http://tagfoot.com/jimmie/bookmarks/art- bookmark to more sites
http://www.geocities.com/preciousdays/artstudy.html
http://members.aol.com/TWard64340/Index.htm Art Takes Time
http://arthistory.about.com/
http://www.coreknowledge.org/CKproto2/resrcs/lessons/01_PreK_Picasso.pdf Picasso
http://www.redshift.com/~bonajo/art_american.htm
http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/arteducation.htm
http://intranet.cps.k12.il.us/Lessons/StructuredCurriculumTOC/SCArt/scart.html Complete Courses K-12
http://www.amblesideonline.org/ArtSch.shtml Complete Course adaptable K-12
http://www.ckcolorado.org/lessons/art.asp List of units based on the What my “nth” grader needs to know book series.
http://www.libsci.sc.edu/miller/folkart.htm
http://homeschooling.about.com/library/blmufine.htm
http://www.edhelper.com/DailyThemes_March_6.html
http://www.edhelper.com/DailyThemes_July_22_2.html
· Collections of Lesson Plans
1. http://www.lessonplanspage.com/Art.htm K-12
2. http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/lessons.html
3. http://members.aol.com/powers8696/artindex.html
4. http://www.montessorimaterials.org/mus.htm
5. http://rollyo.com/dorioakes/lesson_plan_search/ Key term art returned 16000+ activities lessons and units
6. http://www.teachers.net/cgi-bin/lessons/sort.cgi?searchterm=art 213 lessons
7. http://www.mcrel.org/lesson-plans/arts/index.asp Activities designed to meet specific Standards!
8. http://www.primaryresources.co.uk/art/art.htm
9. http://www.ilovethatteachingidea.com/ideas/subj_art.htm
10. http://www.successlink.org/gti/search/results.asp
11. http://www.eduref.org/cgi-bin/lessons.cgi/Arts
12. http://www.eduplace.com/monthlytheme/january/art_activities.html with http://www.eduplace.com/monthlytheme/january/art_additional.html
13. http://www.teachersfirst.com/tchr-subj-date.cfm?subject=art&lower=1&upper=5
14. http://www.teachersfirst.com/tchr-subj-date.cfm?subject=art&lower=6&upper=8
15. http://www.teachersfirst.com/tchr-subj-date.cfm?subject=art&lower=9&upper=12
16. http://www.lessonplansearch.com/Visual_Arts/index.html
17. http://www.verybestkids.com/Categories/CraftsActivities/default.aspx
18. http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/
19. http://www.easyfunschool.com/IndexArt.html
20. http://www.janbrett.com/activities_pages.htm
21. http://www.sraonline.com/index.php/home/curriculumsolutions/finearts/artconnections/historyculture/623
22. http://www.sraonline.com/index.php/home/curriculumsolutions/finearts/artconnections/artgallery/625
23. http://www.atozteacherstuff.com/Lesson_Plans/The_Arts/index.shtml
24. http://www.dltk-kids.com/
25. http://www.buyteachercreated.com/estore/search Search for Art got 61 results mot with usable sample pages.
26. http://www.enchantedlearning.com/artists Some activities require membership.
27. http://depts.washington.edu/chinaciv/tg/tgraph.pdf
28. http://www.menc.org/guides/guideindex.html
29. http://www.canteach.ca/elementary/finearts.html
· Individual lessons
1. http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/art/starry.htm Starry Night
2. http://www.reacheverychild.com/lessonplans/plan1.html