Lapbooks

A couple of years ago I heard a homeschool friend mention that her kids were enjoying Lapbooking Ancient Egypt. Lapbooking? So I pulled her aside to asked her to explain. Ever since that day our family has loved making lapbooks. They are a way for a child to scrapbook in a folder whatever unit or topic of study she is working on. Any child of any age can utilize lapbooking and almost any subject under the sun can be made into a lapbook.

Let me first show you some photos of how to fold a basic lapbook. Start with a file folder opened up.

Next, fold one side in to the middle crease.

Now fold the other side in. This is called a Shutter Fold. This is the front of your lapbook. You can write the tile of your subject/unit or draw a picture, place stickers, etc.

 Here are some photos of lapbooks my kids have made.

This is the first lapbook we made and was done a few years ago when we studied PA history. As you can see we cut it into the shape of PA and on the front labled the capital and a few other cities.

Inside we have our state flag, info on William Penn, and other things we studied.

You can see we taped in an extra sheet to include our state map, bird and flower. Pretty simple and a fun way for the kids to put together all the info they learned.

One year we studied the Middle Ages and we got the idea for this castle-shaped lapbook from a friend. You can see the the pics that the drawbridge is velcroed on. The kids loved this lapbook and kept thinking of more ideas for info that they could put in it.

Opened up you can see all the great stuff that they did. In the lower left-hand corner is a photo of a cardboard castle the all the kids helped to make. They each wrote a princess or knight story for their writing projects, found out what foods people ate back then (in brown triangle fold), and, in red, you can see that they researched the Feudal System and placed info into flaps.

There are many resources on the web pertaining to lapbooking. For free lapbooks and tutorials, go to homeschoolshare.com or lapbooklessons.com

You can purchase lapbook kits at currclick.com or homeschoolinthewoods.com or handsofachild.com. The kits are sold by subject. Currclick also offers a few free lapbooks to try. There is also a great book called The Ultimate Lap Book Handbook. You can buy it at tobinslab.com.

To read more about lapbooking, click here: lapbooking are Lapbooking Made Easy

There are as many ideas for lapbooks as there are hands to make them. If you take your preschooler to the zoo, come home and paste photos of animals, a map of the zoo, a funny memory or favorite animal, and zoo stickers and you have a great little science lapbook. Teaching your youngster the alphabet? Why not help him make a lapbook for every letter. For A he can cut out pictures of things that begin with that letter. For older students a lapbook can make a great book report. If you daughter is reading a book about Laura Ingalls she can do historical research and find photos to print that show other real pioneers in daily life. She can copy pioneer recipes, color styles of clothing,  detail historical happenings at the time Laura Ingalls lived, etc. The ideas are limitless.

Take some time and peruse the websites to look at other photographs of student lapbooks to see even more ideas for making your own. And most importantly, have fun with it. After all, that's sort of the point!

housekeeping....

I've decided to merge my second blog The Ordinary Homeschool into my main blog Stuff and Nonsense. It just doesn't make sense to maintain both when there are so many overlapping topics. I hope that those of you who have been following one or the other will stick around. In the next few days (if my dear, blog-savvy friend April will help me!) I will be updating my SAN pages so that you can click easily get to my posts on homeschooling. I will also be reposting my blog posts from TOH as I go.

Thanks for your patience!

A Prayer for My Children

A few years ago during a bible study at church, and older woman shared a passage of scripture that she had used to pray over her children. It is a beautiful prayer, and one that since then I have also used to pray for mine.

Colossians 1: 9-12 (NASB)

For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, (your love in the Spirit) we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.

Powerful and encouraging words for Paul to write to the Colossians. I hope they are equally powerful and encouraging to you.

he is so small

with warm starfish hands
rough knees


unwritten
fresh
eager


can he grasp
my job
is so big


overwhelming


to lead
guide
fill up
instill


Lord help me
fill him up with You
Your bigness
rightness
loveliness


hope


so that when he passes through the waters
they will not overwhelm him


or me

irish blessing

we wish to the new child

a heart that can be beguiled

by a flower

that the wind lifts

as it passes

may the storms break for him

may the trees shake for him

their blossoms down

in the night that he is troubled

may a friend wake for him

so that his time may be doubled

and at the end of all loving and love

may the man above

give him a crown

Grumpy Old Men

While my younger three children and I were sitting out in the muggy heat this morning waiting for my eldest to finish his golf lesson, I had the opportunity to witness a little irony in the form of two retirees sitting nearby.


These men were both loudly complaining about the new generation of youngsters growing up badly in today's society. Their conversation went something like this.


GOM(grumpy old man)1: "These kids today are terrible."


GOM2: "Got that right. No respect."


GOM1: "They all talk back and wear their pants around their ankles!"


GOM2: "Hmph. And the way they talk. Always talking sh*t to adults."


GOM3: "D**n right! F****n' kids. They need to learn a few manners."


And so it went on.


Oblivious to the extreme irony and vulgarity of their comments (not to mention that they were sitting near a woman and her three young children) they continued in the same vein for several more minutes before moving on to other topics. But their words stayed with me for a while and even now I can't help wondering if they have ever stopped to consider the possibility that the kids in their world have become the way they are because of the behavior they have seen modeled before them.


Perhaps these two grumpy old men should stop and consider that manners, language and consideration for others are all behaviors that are caught rather than taught.


What do you think?






Plus, today I'm participating in:

Boost My Blog Friday @ Design It Chic


Have a great weekend!

Glamping

i found an awesome book at walmart the other day

Mary Jane's Outpost

little miss in double digits

10 years ago today

my beautiful daughter was born

she has filled our home with

joy

silliness

wonder

dancing

creativity

bliss

happy birthday

baby girl

Lifeguard Rumble

So I had a little rumble with the lifeguards at the local pool the other day....perhaps I'd better explain.

Every summer for the past three years we have bought a seasonal pass to a local public pool. We all love to swim and spend most of our free afternoons splashing around. The pool we go to is clean, large and well maintained. The admission and concession prices are low, and patrons are even allowed to bring our own food in.

However, there is one major fly in the ointment....the lifeguards have gotten very, very lazy.

The problem with the chair above is mainly that it's empty. Just like the lifeguard chairs at our local pool have been lately.

When the pool opened this summer, most days the guards would spend the first couple of hours sitting on towels by the side of the pool. On the ground. Not in their chairs. Sometimes they would even be lying down on their stomachs, chatting while children were swimming in the deep end.


After this happened a few times I pulled out my cell phone and snapped photos. The day before I reached boiling point I took snaps of all the lifeguard chairs because they were all empty. EMPTY. That afternoon when we left I drove to the local municipal building and lodged a complaint. Explained that I had photos showing the lackadaisical attitudes on the part of the lifeguards.

Nothing changed.

Now let just preface what you're about to read by saying that I don't enjoy confrontation. In fact, I will go out of my way to avoid it whenever possible. But everyone has a threshold. And a few days ago mine was most definitely crossed.

When we got to the pool and there were about 15-25 people in and around the water. As I was sun screening my children I took a look around for the red suits and easily located them. All 5 guards were hanging out with their friends on duty and relaxing together on their towels by the edge of the pool, at the shallow side, all the way across from the deep end....where a lone child was swimming.

Yup. That pretty much did it. I asked the Holy Spirit to rein me in a little and give me the right words while I marched on over to rumble chat with the lifeguards. (I should mention that all 4 of my kids watched with mouths gaping) I think I opened up with...."Hey guys, this is not at all appropriate." And went on to say something like, "You have swimmers in all parts of the pool, including the deep end and you are just not doing your job. When you sit on the ground you cannot see beneath the surface of the water and that is extremelely dangerous. I know it's boring sitting up in those chairs all day, but they are not there for decoration. They are there so that you can see into the pool and keep swimmers safe. Please get up into your chairs."

Too much? Not enough?

Let me tell you....those kids just nodded their heads and popped right up and practically sprinted to their chairs. Later on one of the guards came and apologized to me and acknowledged that I was right to vent my concern. I'm guessing the rest of the lifeguards were thinking less charitable thoughts about me.

 But I bet the next time they see me coming they'll be looking down on me from about 6 feet up.

Whites

perhaps
 it's because

i'm coming off

a busy week

capped by an all-night slumber party

with 7 eight year old boys

high on sugar

sweaty

messy

rough and tumbly

perhaps

it's because we're

bang in the middle of summer

my favorite season

until autumn arrives

perhaps

it's because my house seems to be

in a perpetual tip

rather than the

a peaceful

minimalist

(clean) place
i would like it to be

but i've been dreaming of white lately

 white

on white

on

white

of course

that's obviously a house

or at least

a living room

with no small children

mucking around

but it's lovely

and did i mention

that the exterior of my house
 needs to be painted?
badly

i'd like something like this, please

that porch was made for summer afternoon naps

and if i had no small children

i might have an office 

where everything is in it's place
put away
neat

right now

i'd really like to climb into this

downy

inviting

bed

with its heirloom linens

fine lace

vintage chenille

actually

my bed is a bit like that

minus the heirloom shtuff

white on white

but bigger

messier

with lots of room

for two adults

and four

messy

rumply

delightful

children

i guess white is a little

overrated 

School Room Before and After

recently i've been busy with a makeover project

our schoolroom

here's a reminder of what it used to look like

tatty old carpet

wobbly old table

dingy blue walls

icky old sofa

and here she is

apparently

no elves came in the night

to magically organize my bookshelves

bummer

and

obviously

 i forgot to paint inside the bookcase

i found the table and chairs set

at a garage sale for

ten dollars

the seats need recovered

but that's a job for another day

or year

or

 decade

and here's a close-up of the floor

after i pulled up the carpet

and scrubbed the 80-or-so year old lino underneath

i realized that it was not in great shape

so i found some oops paint on a shelf in the basement

(brown latex exterior)

primed and painted the floors

then watered down some craft paint

and sprayed it all over

the kids love it

and loved "helping"

all in all

i'm very pleased with how it turned out

maybe it'll even make my kids

more eager to do their school work

a mom can hope

.....hats.....

whoever thought

of making a giant flower

into a hat

was a genius

some hats

are big enough

to be the outfit

itself

some

are

not

some hats

make me hungry

and some

just make me smile

some

remind me

of

nature

in a creepy way

hmmm

sensing a theme?

perhaps

the women in the

previous photos

should have been wearing

protective gear

and

then

there's

this

some things

i

just

don't

understand