Dolphin Wrap Up (First Grade & Preschool)

Above is the completed lapbook we made using the Unit Studies by Amanda Bennett Dolphin Days Unit.  The kids love her units, I think the Youtube clips are their favorite.  But they are always very educational and lots of fun.

This unit study had minimal writing, so made it favorable to my son (who you may remember hates writing).  The vocabulary and some of the other activities were cut and paste.  Some other writing was involved.

While C was cutting out the pieces for the lapbook, I would give the 2 littles ‘work’ of their own, here are a few projects they did during this unit

You can revisit what was in our preschool workboxes for the unit HERE (including FREE printables made by me and links to the printables shown above).  The tissue paper dolphin was printed from HERE onto velum.

C also had a little sewing project, though I think I was over ambitious with it, it started out well, but he lost interest and I finished most of it. 
I found the pattern HERE and enlarged it slightly with my scanner, then cut it out of felt.

C read the following books:

 

He also watched the Currclick Magic Tree House Book Club meeting for book #9 (Free to join, this month’s book is #19).  It’s FREE to join!

Other Books:

We watched:

Movie:  Dolphin Tale

Discovery Education:  (on sale NOW through 9/16 at the Homeschool Buyer’s Co-op, $99 for a year subscription)
Reading Rainbow:  Louis the Fish
How They Live:  Dolphins

Netflix Streaming:
The Ultimate Guide Dolphins (only avail until 9/26 on Streaming)
A Life Among Whales
Free Willy:  Escape From Pirates Cove

Hulu Plus:  Flipper (the original series)

Games:  PBS Wild Kratts Dolphin Dive
Video Clip:  Speaking Dolphinese – Wild Kratts

Powermylearning.org:  Shark Numbers

Review- A Journey Through Learning (TOS Review)

We had the opportunity to take a look at a few of A Journey Through Learning’s lapbooks.  We decided to complete the Knights and Castles lapbook since my son has been interested in castles recently.
Each lapbook packet comes with easy to understand instructions.  There are also video tutorials on How To Lapbook on their website.
The entire lapbook can be completed in about a month, if you do one piece a day.  It is designed for 2nd-7th grades, though technically my son is in 1st.  Older children could quite easily complete this lapbook on their own.  My son and I did it together, I would read to him the study guide, while he cut out the pieces and placed them on the folders.  We took turns with writing in the booklets.
There is religious reference in this unit, so it may not fit a secular homeschooling curriculum.

My son is on the fence about lapbooks, but he really enjoyed doing this one!
Lapbooks are available as instant downloads, CD format or preprinted.  An instant download of the Knights and Castles costs for $13.00.  A Journey Through Learning has a wide variety of lapbooks to choose from, many correspond with curriculums such as Classical Conversations, Apologia and more.  Their prices range from $1+. 
Other lapbooks we looked at and are looking forward to completing in the future are The Earth, Astronomy and Space and for my 4 year old Letters, Numbers and Shapes.
You can see how we incorporated the Knights and Castles lapbook into a unit study HERE.

First Grade (week 15)

  
 
Ant lapbook from Homeschool Share (thought the Ants Parts if from 2TeachingMommies)

Egypt Sticker Sheets (from Oriental Trading) and making an Egyptian necklace from a Kid Kit that Usborne Books use to carry.  

Ancient Egyptian Kilt from Ancient Egyptians and Their Neighbors: An Activity Guide a reference from Pandia Press History Odyssey - Ancients I

C Read                        We Read            We Watched
        
                                                             (Ants in the pants episode)

We also read The Ant and The Grasshopper and The Ant and The Dove from Aesop's Fables

FREE app - The Ant and The Grasshopper interactive book
Fun FREE app - Tap, Tap Ants

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First Grade - Week 14 - Bee Unit

Here is what we did FUN this week!

 Art project for our Monet Study (more to come on this later)

November LEGO CLUB!  (Read more about it HERE)

Bee Lapbook (we don't usually do lapbooks, but we gave it a shot this week, and it was fairly successfly, minimal grumbling   I did a lot of the cutting out and prep work, leaving him with minimal....I did some writing, while he did some as well.  We got most of the materials from CurrClick - Honey Bee Mini Books, I also used Bee Parts from 2TeachingMommies and bee info hexagon from Enchanted Learning.

For Writing/Spelling -

Correct Spelling Insects

Bee Anatomy and Life Cycle

Animal Groups Book - Insect Page

We made an Egyptian Sailboat from Ancient Egyptians and Their Neighbors: An Activity Guide one of the reference books used with Pandia Press Ancient History

We Watched

Episode:  In a Beehive

C Read


We Read -
Aesop's Fables - The Bear and The Bees, The Bees and Wasps, and The Hornet.
We also read the poem, Bee! I'm expecting you and Every Insect from
 

And a fun bee app for only 99cents

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Puffins Lapbook

So with science class being about birds and mammals, each child was assigned to do a report on a bird of their choice. We came home after the first class and went through what animal books we had about birds, and Cole chose to learn about Puffins. We read about them, watched several YouTube videos about them...and we lap booked about them. The assignment actually said to write a report, but since he is the youngest in the class and is not writing much more than his name as of right now, we decided a lap book was the best option. I wrote in the words, but he helped me find the information, he read it to me (in most cases), and I wrote it. Then he did the gluing and some of the cutting.
So presenting our Puffins project:




I got most of the lap booking items from Bird Lap books and from Enchanted Learning (I mentioned this site before, it's a $20/yr membership fee, but has lots of really useful stuff, well worth the cost IMO).

Zane of course wanted to have something to do as well, so I pulled out the play dough and some plastic scissors. This is a great way to build the muscles kids need to use scissors. Paper is to flimsy for them to cut, so starting out with play dough really helps them get a feel for scissors, then you can move onto card stock or tag board (b/c it's not flimsy).... The only way for kids to learn to cut is to let them do it! Cole still needs some work, but he has never been into arts and crafts, and never graduated much past cutting play dough (b/c he never wanted to).

Then we took a field trip to the Scholastic Books Warehouse SALE...a dangerous place for me! YIKES! I am a book-a-holic, but I found lots of great books...and controlled my spending (for the most part). I got some books for this year (K) and the next 2 schools years (1st and 2nd grade). But, as I always have said...you can NEVER have to many books...and I have put it to the test! I'd much rather have my bookshelves over flowing than a bunch of junk toys everywhere! Here is what I got for $75.