Walking by the Way

Learning with LEGO

Elijah spent last week learning with LEGO using the digital unit I prepared for him.  

He spent four days watching videos about LEGOs, completing building challenges and creating a Lap-N-Note ™.

Putting the lapbook together.

Completed Lap-N-Note ™ Page 1

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

Elijah’s coolest creation of the week–

Sunny Seashells

We had a fantastic week using the new Download N Go study, Sunny Seashells! Ever since our Five in a Row Night of the Moonjellies co-op, the boys have been wanting to explore the topic of seashells.

Books We Read

Gramma’s Walk by Anna Grossnickle Hines
One Small Square Seashore by Donald Silver
Science Nature Guides Seashells (a great book for identifying shells!)
Slugs and Snails (we read this to learn more about mollusks) by Claire Llewellyn
The Burgess Seashore Book for Children by Thornton W. Burgess

I just want to say that we (all three of us!) are loving The Burgess Seashore Book for Children! You will learn so much about the critters living on the seashore. It is the perfect read aloud for this unit.

A Box of Shells!
Monday started off on the right foot. I ordered a small package of shells, and it arrived that afternoon! My kids were pretty excited.

Table Cloth Making
On Tuesday the boys painted an ocean-themed table cloth for our shell party. This is one of the project ideas in the Family Fun section of the unit.

We stamped a few shells and fishy hands, but other than that, the boys just painted whatever they wanted. I had to chant process not product to myself while this was happening! 

Shell Matching Game
The boys used Simon’s shell matching game (from O is for Ocean) to play a few rounds on Thursday. Simon is ridiculously good at this game. 

On Friday we prepared some shell cupcakes for our party! These are easy to make. You can find my tutorial in this blog post. 

Using the Download N Go Unit
Each Download N Go unit comes with a lot of printable pages. A lot. After our test-run DNG, Benjamin Franklin, I decided that the worksheets = too much writing for Elijah. By Day 4, he didn’t even want to continue with the study, and he wanted to learn about Ben Franklin (his idea, not mine). 

However, I was not willing to give up on the product because the videos, the links, the projects. . .everything was really great and would make for some easy (for me!) delight-directed studies.

I decided for our next try, I would only print a few pages for Elijah plus the lapbook. I printed 22 pages total this time. 

It didn’t take much time for me to go through the unit and decide what to print. Then I split the work up by the day in this handy folder (I found mine at Wal-mart). 

Inside it has pockets and more pockets. Each page is a large pocket with a smaller pocket below. This is wonderful for lapbooking. I have it open to Thursday and Friday in the picture below. Thursday’s work (left side) is done. It goes BACK IN the folder until the end of the unit when Elijah is ready to assemble his notebook. Friday’s work (right side) is still waiting on Elijah. 

Elijah knew what to do each day. He pulled his work out of the folder, went through the Download N Go unit, narrated what he learned (instead of filling out all the worksheets), and completed the notebooking/lapbooking pages for that day.

It worked really, really well for us! 

Sunny Seashells Notebook Pictures

Elijah picked a Bare Book to use as the base for his lap/notebook. We did add some copywork pages (see pages 4, 5, & 7 of the notebook) to the unit. You can download these here.

Once Elijah had finished all the work in the purple folder, he laid everything out on the table to start on his notebook lay-out. I always have to leave the room so I won’t put my grubby fingers all over it. I only helped when he asked for my opinion. 

Page 1 

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4 

Page 5

Page 6 (from Draw Write Now Book 6)

Page 7

Page 8

We printed the Tide Pool Activity on cardstock and made flaps out of the creature cut-outs. Elijah wrote the name of each creature under the corresponding flap.

Page 9

You can read about Simon’s week here. 

Astronaut Adventures

Mission: Have fun learning with the Astronaut Mini-Unit
Status: Complete

~prepping some mini-books

~working through the videos, interactive websites, and astronaut information

Page 1

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

Elijah’s next exploration is "Mad Science!"  
Who says summer school can’t be fun?!  :)

Easter Unit and Notebook

Here is a slideshow of Elijah’s Easter lapbook (in a notebook). We spent about three weeks learning about the life of Christ with Amanda Bennett’s Easter Unit Study and the free corresponding lapbook at Homeschool Share.

Elijah used a spiral bound Bare Book for this project. Pages 18-22 (not pictured) are vocabulary pages.

Wizard of Oz Lapbook

I’m back.  I think.  I won’t bore you with details, but I’ve had some physical issues to work through.   I’ve been on the upswing for a few months!    Hopefully, I can get back to blogging.  :)  

Here is Elijah’s Wonderful Wizard of Oz lapbook from I’m-not-sure-when.    We started it as a read aloud, but he finished the last few chapters alone.  His great grandma gave him the next two books (Marvelous Land of Oz and Ozma of Oz) for Christmas.  Since then, I’ve purchased quite a few more Oz books.   He loves them!

Most of the minit books are found at Homeschool Share.  Elijah also added a few of his own ideas (with a little help from me).    We also added some Wizard of Oz stickers (by Dover).  

Madeline ~ FIAR Style

We’ve used Five in a Row from the beginning of our homeschooling journey.  We started with Before Five in a Row when Elijah was 2 (almost 3).   We’ve been through most of Volumes I-III and part of Volume IV.    This is our fifth year with our FIAR based homeschooling co-op, and we are back in Volume I.   Here is a week with FIAR from my family to yours!  :)

All of the minit books listed are from HSS.

Monday at Co-op
Started off strong at co-op; we split our larger group into two small groups for the activities today and it really seemed to cut down on the chaos.  

First, the kids learned about the Eiffel tower and worked in teams to create vanilla cream wafter replicas.  

We also met Marcus, a volunteer EMT and ambulance driver.  He gave us the full scoop on being an EMT and showed them the equipment it takes to do the job.  They also got a tour of the ambulance; all the kids were very curious and listened intently to Marcus the entire time.

The Rest of the Week
~read Madeline again each day (except Friday)

Social Studies
~read Madeline Says Merci and discussed manners; completed go-along minit books 
~read Children Just Like Me (pg. 32, Rachel from France)
~fixed French Toast (with French bread) & listened to Teach Me French
~completed France component for lapbook
~made Eiffel Tower from Legos

Language Arts
~discussed the literary elements lesson & completed the Rhyme Time minit book

Applied Math
~discussed symmetry & looked through illustrations; completed symmetry minit books

Science

 ~started human body project; added brain, heart, kidneys, bladder, spleen, pancreas, gallbladder, and bones (this project is on-going!
~started reading Usborne’s First Encyclopedia of the Human Body (this will also be on-going)
~watched The Magic School Bus Human Body DVD
~discussed body systems from Giant Science Resource Book 
~Elijah read lots of go-along books:
What Makes You Ill? (Usborne)
Your Body (Usborne Beginners)
Your Insides by Joanna Cole
You Can’t See Your Bones with Your Binoculars
You Can’t Taste a Pickle with Your Ear

Art
~drew a picture of Madeline
~completed architecture lesson and the Tour de France minit book
~discussed illustrations and art lesson about color
~colored Eiffel towers (one monochromatic and one full color palette)

Completed Madeline Lapbook

Front Cover
 

Inside View

Inside Rhyme Time 

Inside Body Systems (many print-outs from Evan-Moor’s Giant Science Resource Book).  

We had a few minit books that went with Madeline Says Merci.   

Tour de France accordion book (shows all the famous places shown throughout Madeline)


This lapbook is one file folder glued inside another.  

The inside file folder 



Inside "Is it Monochromatic?" 


These were symmetry cards; we chose not to cut them out and just tri-folded instead.

Cover of France book


Inside France book

Inside Eiffel Tower Creations…

China Unit & Notebook

We started our study with The Story About Ping.   We added in a Learn About China Kit, a co-op field trip to P.F. Chang’s, and bits & pieces from the Ancient Civilizations History Pocket.   We ended up with a boy who couldn’t wait to learn about China each day!


 

Book List
The Story About Ping
Tikki Tikki Tembo (go along for the classic story & fiction story lessons in FIAR)
The Five Chinese Brothers by Claire Huchet Bishop (go along for the classic story & fiction story lessons in FIAR)
Children Just Like Me (used with geography lesson for FIAR)
Good Times Travel Agency Adventures in Ancient China by Linda Bailey
Usborne Beginners China (has internet links)
The Great Wall of China by Leonard Everett Fisher 
The Magic Boat by Demi
A Grain of Rice by Helena Pittman
Little Pear & Little Pear and His Friends by Eleanor Frances Lattimore
Ling and the Magic Paintbrush by Demi
The Empty Pot by Demi

Other Resources
Teach me Chinese (book and CD)
Chinese New Year Celebration printables by Scholastic
Great Wall of China Informational Sheet from Learning Page
Ping Resources at HSS
Dragon Puppet (I can’t find the link for the one we made…sorry)
Ancient Civilizations History Pockets
China Learning Kit (which made this study real and relevant)

Flight Finally Finished!

Obviously, I am ridiculously behind in blog posts, so I am posting LOTS to get caught up.   I should’ve posted these pictures of Elijah’s Flight Journal three weeks ago, but better late than never.  

Before I post pictures, I am going to try to answer questions you might have.

1.  What did we use as our spine for this study?
Amanda Bennett’s unit & FIAR’s unit- The Glorious Flight

As for additional resources, I am not going to give you a list of books we read.  It would be ridiculously long, and most of the suggestions were found right in the Amanda Bennett unit study.  

2.  How long did you spend on this unit? 
About four weeks.  We didn’t get through the entire Amanada Bennett unit.  We can always pick back up where we left off OR do the unit again when the boys are older.   We were ready to move on to a new topic.   

3.  Where did you get the notebook printables?
I made most, found a few online, and one was a printable from a Scholastic book (Amelia Earhart mini book).  I will be sharing them at Homeschool Share soon.  I’m not sure if I will go ahead and make printables for the entire flight unit study (since we only did 2/3 of it).  I might.  I might add a few generic minit books…who knows.   

4.  This isn’t a question, but...
We have had so much fun with this unit.  If you have a student interested in flying things, give this one a go!   Here is a list of some of the fun we’ve had with this unit.

~Hot Air Balloon Project
~Constructing a Model of a Biplane (and making paper airplanes, too!)
~Orville Wright Birthplace & Museum Field Trip
~Fly-in Cruise-in (at our local airport) 
~Toured an Airport (free!)
~Visited National Museum of the US Air Force  (free admission!)


Here are the pictures of Elijah’s Flight Journal.  A few printables are from around the web; the links were given in the unit study.

Pages 1-2 (Icarus, Leonardo, Hot Air Balloons)

I think this is the first time that I didn’t write in any of the minit books for Elijah. He put a lot of hard work into completing them! 

Pages 3-4  (gliders, four forces, and label a helicopter)

Pages 5-6 (Wright Brothers, Bessie Coleman, Harriet Quimby)

Copywork (all the ideas are included in the unit)

Words of Wisdom (each day of the unit study gives you 2-3 words of wisdom to look up)

Amelia Earhart

Elijah’s Glorious Flight Lapbook is glued to the inside back cover of this notebook.   

Here are a few more shots I want to include– Elijah & his model plane. 

The Glorious Flight

While working through the Flight Unit Study, we decided to work in a Five in a Row unit,The Glorious Flight, focusing on Louis Bleriot.  

Field Trip!
We visited a small local airport with our co-op friends.  The pilot did a great job with the kids and answered all of our questions about his job and his plane.

Trying French Foods
 ~Crepes (with homemade strawberry jam and whipped cream!)

~French Doughnuts (we made these together for tea-time)

Lapbook Pictures
We used the lessons from Five in a Row Volume I & the lapbook printables are from Homeschool Share

Learning about Roman Numerals

Elijah wrote, "He was the first to fly across the sea. (1909)  He did not give up."

Elijah loved the descriptive writing lesson.  The inside of the book says…
it is very tasty
shaped like a big chocolate chip
silver wrapper
sweet and smooth

Can you guess what he was describing? 

The count to ten in French printable is from Enchanted Learning.

The flag of France book is a graduated book that has two sections

Fun times with The Glorious Flight!  

Ancient Egypt Unit Study

I determined that this year Elijah would get to choose more of his unit study topics, and he decided to start off 2nd grade with Ancient Egypt.   I hope to write some posts this year about Delight-Directed education (the philosophy we are working toward).  I can honestly say that Elijah taught himself more about Ancient Egypt than I taught him.  He knows MORE about Ancient Egypt than I do.   When you let your child have a hand in his own education, he just might surprise and delight YOU.  

I inteded to make this a series of posts, but laundry and dishes and gardening keep getting in the way of blogging, so you are only getting one (very fat) post.

Becoming an Egyptologist (or is that archaeologist?)
We started with a kit I picked up at Frye’s for about $5.   Elijah could barely breathe when he saw it in his workbox on the first day of our Ancient Egypt study. He worked on it for a long time and was happy with his finished product. 

Making a Mummy
Another fun project we did the second week of our study was to "mummify" an apple.  We also tried preserving with water (freezing) and Elijah predicted which one would be in the best shape when we checked on them a week later. 

We took three apple slices and washed/dried them  (something weird about eating an apple slice during a mummifying experiment…).

One apple gets coated in a mixture of salt and soda (about 1/4 cup of each).   Then you roll it up in some guaze. 

Another apple gets placed in a ziploc of water.

The final apple gets placed in a dish.


The apple in the water goes in the freezer while the other two go to a dark, cool place (scary!) for seven days (don’t peek!).   

Want to see our results?  Are you sure?  :)

the control apple (ew!)

the apple mummy

the frozen apple

Ziggurat Lego Model
After learning about architecture, Elijah decided to try his hand at building a (very colorful) ziggurat complete with treasures stored inside.  I had no part of this…didn’t even know it was how he was spending an afternoon.

Making a Pharaoh Mask

We followed the Pharaoh Mask instructions found at DLTK kids.  You can do the same, but here are a few tips:

1.  Make your pattern by folding a piece of posterboard in half.  You won’t see the fold after you paper mache.   Also, draw it in pencil as many times as you need until you have something you like.  You won’t see the pencil marks after the paper mache, either. 

2.  Smooth the newspaer pieces down after your student is done.  I didn’t do this for Elijah, and after we spray painted it, I saw all the lumps and bumps.  It’s okay (he doesnt’ care!), but I thought I would share that tip.

3.  Put plastic lids under the mask as it dries so it won’t stick to your work surface.  

4.  You might want to cut holes in your eyes BEFORE you paper mache.  I had a really hard time cutting the eyes out.  I think we could’ve paper mached around them easier.  I don’t know for sure.  

5.  Use a thick flat brush for painting the stripes. 

6.  Have fun!  I don’t know if Elijah will ever let me get rid of this mask! 

Ancient Egypt Notebook 

We used the Evan Moor History Pockets book to make our notebook.  I skipped some things as this book is targeted for 4th-6th graders.  I am only going to post some of the pictures (we filled an entire Bare Book).  You get lots of informational pages to print in the History Pockets book.  We pasted most of them as full pages in the notebook, but a few were folded (as simple folds or tri-folds).  

Learning about Daily Life was great (my favorite part!) 

Government, Leaders, & Occupations



Religion

Very cool mummy book that demonstrates the layering of the coffins… (cover is "Where’s My Mummy?" above)

Architecture

Courtyard Pop-up (cover pictured above "An Egyptian Courtyard"

"Elijah" in hieroglyphs

Resources Used


Evan Moor History Pockets ~ Ancient Egypt
Usborne Beginners ~ Egyptians by Stephanie Turnbull
Who Built the Pyramids? by Jane Chisholm & Straun Reid (Usborne)
Mummies and Pyramids by Mary Pope Osborne (Magic Treehouse Research)
Tutankhamen’s Gift by Robert Sabuda
Adventures in Ancient Egypt by Linda Bailey
Mummies Made in Egypt by Aliki
Egyptian Life Stickers by Dover
Safari LTD Ancient Egypt Toob
note:  Something fun I did with the Acient Egypt Toob…I put all the pieces in a workbox and told Elijah that he had to tell me how each one related to Ancient Egypt.  If he didn’t know, he had to do some research and find out.  He loved this much more than I thought he would!  I might have a little researcher on my hands. 

Links
Your Name in Hieroglyphs
Explore Ancient Egypt (includes some great printable activities!)
Ancient Egypt Paper Dali (cover image)
Pharoah Mask