Loving Lapbooks

We finished our first unit study from (the wonderful, amazing) Homeschool Share site. "Comet's Nine Lives" was the story that it centered around and we did a lap book on cats. We didn't include other things from the unit (hurricanes, islands, etc) in the actual lapbook- Grace preferred it to be mostly about cats- but she did enjoy the other activities. Lapbook photos below...

All in all we did about 20 activities that related to the book, which we read at least 12 times- each time with something new discovered. We used the free version of Homeschool Tracker and I found it really easy to follow our progress. After a few hours of customizing it and setting up the subjects, activities, resources etc it was a simple matter of entering each activity as an assignment, as well as adding in "assignments" after the fact when we would follow a "rabbit trail".

It took us just under 3 weeks- but of course we had more interruptions than usual- I expect that normally we'll spend 2 weeks or so on a unit. According to the cool report I generated in HST to give my ES (we are still reserving judgment on our charter school experience) over 14 days we spent 4.25 hours in Creative Arts, 6 hours in PE, 3.33 hours on Language Arts, 1.5 on math, 5 on science, and 2.75 on social studies. Plus of course all the "in the moment" life skills type learning that doesn't get tracked as easily- although now that I am getting used to using HST I might start throwing in those unschooling, "teachable moments" as assignments, after the fact like I did with the Unit Study "rabbit trails".

The next Unit Study one is set to be "The Art Lesson" although yesterday at the park day where we met with our ES we got some of the supplies we ordered with our Educational Funds and one of the items is a Butterfly Nursery- so she wants to do a Butterfly unit. I need to read the instructions and see if we can even do it in fall! It may be better to save until Spring. I ordered The Art Lesson through Paperback Swap (Swap Your Paperback Books - PaperBackSwap.com and it is on it's way to me, along with 2 others (A Rainbow of my Own and Mama, Do You Love Me?) for future unit studies.

Today we met with our new "girls club" at the park near our house. This was the group of girls we got together to start our own Daisy Girl Scout Troop (which we decided was too much paperwork, legalism and cookie sales)! So we are each going to take a turn doing something simple and fun for the girls- today I organized a simple craft, game and snack (the Pampered Chef Apple/Peeler/Corer/ Slicer was a big hit!) around an Apple theme (since yesterday was Johnny Appleseed's birthday). It was lots of fun and Grace really enjoyed playing with her new friends. She decided as soon as we got home to fill in the inside of the Apple Book that she had decorated a cover for at the park. Apple theme photos, click here...

Our cat lapbook...