Landforms Lapbook

Imagine my shock and surprise when my child was working on an assignment and had no idea what a plateau was! Well, I knew that I must take action and teach this child about landforms (I thought that was done last year but maybe it did not stick). My first step is always to Google my desired lapbook first to see if anyone else has already done the heavy lifting for me. There was no published land form lapbook but instead someone who had a few great photos posted of one that they did with their child. Those pictures got my poor, old brain clicking!

First, I decided to have my kids complete a mini book with a definition of the particular land form. We discussed what the land form was and I showed them a few pictures of the land form under discussion.


Then, I had the kids draw their own picture of that land form. Now this proved to be more revealing than I thought! You can really get an idea of what they understand based on what they are able to produce.

Next, we looked at different examples of the land form as seen in the world. While doing this, we found the examples on our world map.

Finally, at the end of the lapbook we discussed latitude and longitude and found coordinates on our world map.

Of course, I cannot resist getting our hands dirty- so I decided for us to make a a salt dough map illustrating the landforms that we learned about.


Here are a few of the web sites that I found with information and videos pertaining to landforms.

http://cgullworld.blogspot.com/2008/08/top-10-glaciers-in-world.html
http://edtech.kennesaw.edu/web/habitats.html
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/hsw/10155-lakes-and-ponds-introduction-to-lakes-and-ponds-video.htm
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/hsw/11858-land-and-water-glaciers-video.htm
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/hsw/25531-learning-geographical-terms-high-landforms-video.htm
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/hsw/22706-learning-geographical-terms-low-landforms-video.htm
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/hsw/20531-natural-phenomena-spectacular-canyons-video.htm
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/hsw/11872-oceans-introduction-to-oceans-video.htm
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/geography/peninsula-videos-playlist.htm#video-18811
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/hsw/19472-shorelines-bay-video.htm
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/hsw/18848-the-southwest-the-great-plains-video.htm
http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/nalnd.htm
http://cybersleuth-kids.com/sleuth/Science/Earth_Science/Land_Forms/
http://www.eduplace.com/kids/socsci/books/applications/imaps/maps/g2_u2/index.html
http://www.kidinfo.com/science/geology.html
http://www.webcrawler.com/webcrawler_stoolfefbar/ws/results/Web/Landform%20For%20Kids/1/302360/RightNav/Relevance/iq=true/zoom=off/_iceUrlFlag=7?_IceUrl=true
http://www.edu.pe.ca/southernkings/landforms.htm
http://itouchmap.com/latlong.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mountain_ranges
http://www.onlinegkguide.com/2008/09/01/major-gulfs-of-the-world/
http://www.scienceclarified.com/landforms/Ocean-Basins-to-Volcanoes/Plain.htmlhttp://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20050914/Feature1.asp
http://scienceray.com/earth-sciences/physical-geography/the-worlds-most-beautiful-bays/
http://www.kidsgeo.com/geology-for-kids/0031-what-are-landforms.php
http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-maps/world-geography-map.html
http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-major-island.htm
http://www.squidoo.com/salt-dough-maps

Vocabulary Mini Office

To be honest, I struggle with the concept of teaching vocabulary. Some teachers feel that teaching traditional vocabulary lessons are the way to improve a child's spoken or reading vocabulary, and others believe that simply reading good books will provide this improvement to the child's word base. I have used both approaches and see the advantages to both. I believe that traditional vocabulary lessons may not provide the crossover knowledge that we desire, but it does provide other areas of learning. These lessons help train the child in alphabetizing, dictionary skills, and discernment. I feel that all of these are important skills for children. After much back and forth, I have decided to create a Vocabulary Mini Office for my children using the Four Fold Vocabulary Method. I found this method and a wealth of others at this site: http://www.cobbk12.org/Cheathamhill/LFS%20Update/Vocabulary%20and%20Word%20Walls.htm .

The idea behind the Four Fold Method is that the student folds their papers into rows of four sections each. In the first section, the student writes the word. In the second section, the student writes a definition of the word in their own words. In the third section, the student draws a picture or symbol to represent the word. In the final section, the student writes a sentence with the word based on their definition.

After completing this, I have my kids place the sections into pockets in their mini office. They must review the cards daily as part of their vocabulary study. Eventually, I would like for them to cut apart the sections and play a matching game.

My children actually think this is a fun activity!:) I even let them decorate the outside of their office.

I found a few good sites while on my quest for direction in the realm of vocabulary and I hope they prove helpful:

http://www.teach-nology.com/worksheets/language_arts/vocab/five/
http://www.tampareads.com/wrksheet/index-4b.htm
http://www.vocabulary.co.il/
http://treasures.macmillanmh.com/georgia/teachers/resources/grade3/spelling-and-vocabulary-activities
http://www.proteacher.com/cgi-bin/outsidesite.cgi? id=12912&external=http://www.factmonster.com/cgi-bin/word&original=http://www.proteacher.com/070169.shtml&title=Word of the Day
http://www.perucsd.org/claundree/3rd%20grade%20spelling_words.htm
http://www.vrml.k12.la.us/cc/vp_gle/2nd/ela/trophy/2nd/speed_read/speed.htm
http://www.teach-nology.com/worksheets/language_arts/vocab/third /
http://www.vocabulary.com/

Resurrection Eggs Lapbook

This is a cute little lap book for Easter. It centers around Resurrection Eggs. I downloaded it off of this site:http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/jaminacema/500883/ . This lady has great lap books!

Happy Easter!

Astronomy Lapbook

Well, we just finished Exploring Creation with Astronomy by Jeannie Fulbright and this is the culmination of our work. I downloaded this lapbook from the Yahoo Group Notebooking2Learn. It is a wonderful lapbook created by Jessica (the moderator of the group). After each chapter in the book, we completed the corresponding mini books. It was a great review of the chapter for the kids.

In case you are interested, here are some great science web sites:

http://www.earthsunmoon.co.uk/

http://www.gamequarium.org/dir/Science_Interactives_for_MO_GLEs/

http://www.jeanniefulbright.com/notebookpages.html

http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forkids/kidsclub/flash/games/levelfive/KC_Solar_System.html

http://www.gamequarium.org/dir/SqoolTube_Videos/Science/Space/Moon/Phases_of_the_Moon/moon_phases_4656.html

http://www.gamequarium.org/dir/SqoolTube_Videos/Science/Space/Solar_System/planets_3775.html

http://www.gamequarium.org/dir/SqoolTube_Videos/Science/Space/Solar_System/

http://www.gamequarium.org/dir/SqoolTube_Videos/Science/Space/Space_Exploration/

I hope you enjoy!

Art/Famous Artists Lapbook

Well, this is another idea that I had in the middle of the night when I could not sleep! I hope it is a good one.

There are always so many things that I want to do with the kids but cannot find time for- art is one of them. Theoretically, I was going to do this with the kids over the summer, but the list of things to do over the summer seems to be growing fast! We will see how it works out. Anyway, I used these books that I picked up from the used book store titled Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists. Our library has corresponding DVDs to go with them.

The first section I made a color wheel, light, major artistic movements, and little matchbooks that each focus on a different mode of art. I used an Usborne art book- Children's Book of Art- for this information and Homeschoolshare for the templates.

In the following sections, I highlight a few of the famous artists that I want to focus on (Monet, Da Vinci, Rembrandt, Picasso, and Van Gogh). I made little books on the artist, their home country, and famous artwork. I also wanted a place were the kids could try to mimic the artwork itself and where they could do a bit of narration about the art.

Here are a few of the sites that were helpful:

http://www.first-school.ws/activities/artapp/collage.htm -Picasso

http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/elem/elemlessons.html- so many great ideas

http://pixilatedschoolnotes.blogspot.com/2007/09/learning-about-art-van-gogh.html - Van Gogh

http://www.first-school.ws/activities/occasions/vangogh.htm- Sunflower/Van Gogh

http://www.first-school.ws/activities/artapp/impressionism.htm - Monet

http://ebeth.typepad.com/serendipity/2008/07/a-is-for-art.html - Da Vinci

I think we may add to this once we get started because there is so much out there that we can use, but this is a good skeleton to start with.

Explorers Lapbook

I decided to create this lapbook for my kids to do over the summer. I found this great book at the library called Look it up Explorers, and I used it as the basis for my lapbook. I decided to divide the section into the Americas, Africa/Asia/Australia, and Artic/Antarctic.

For each section I made small matchbooks with different explorers on each one. I made my list of explorers using the book above. My intention is for my kids to read the section on each explorer and write important facts about them in the matchbook. Also, for each section I mad a fold up book with a map of their region inside. My plan is to have the kids track the voyages of each explorer in a different color.

As a second thought (and because I had extra room), I decided to include small books on different related topics. For example, with the Americas section I included books on the Incas and Aztecs, Sacajawea, and Scurvy. For Africa, Asia, and Australia I made small books on The Crusades, The Nile River, Confucianism, Buddhism, Easter Island, and The Great Wall of China. For the Artic/Antarctic I included books on Icebergs, Inuit People, Penguins, and Dog Sleds.

The lapbook is not tremendously in depth but for summer work it will do just fine for us. I hope you enjoy.

To help me make this book I used the homeschoolshare site because they have a wide variety of lapbook templates and Google Images. Sorry all of my pictures are sideways!:)

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.