Welcome to Life at the Holman's.


This blog is my way of sharing some of my thoughts and ideas. As the children age and become independent, I find myself with an empty space. Years of homeschooling and child-rearing focus has transitioned to more time to focus on the things I enjoy. One of my greatest pleasures is cooking. I enjoy making sweet treats for my family and friends and preparing meals that bring a smile to my husband's face. I like finding new ideas that help to make life easier. Enjoy!

Monday, May 31, 2010

Home School Links - Lapbooks

The summer "break" is upon us.  We have finished our regular school year and are preparing to begin our summer fun school activities.  This summer we will be focusing on our Science, Music, and Art subjects.

I find that during the regular school year, we just do not have time in our day to work on these subjects and do them any justice.  A couple of years ago, I decided to do our science in the summer when we were able to actually examine plants and animals and be able to get outside to observe nature and do various experiments.  It worked really well for us, and we had a lot of fun doing it.

During the summer, I try to make school seem like more fun than learning.  It is amazing though how much the kids learn while having fun.  We do fun things during the winter months also, but sometimes it is just hard to find fun in working on a handwriting page in a workbook teaching you how to properly form a cursive "T" or a math page in a text book answering a long division problem...ick!

One of the methods we will use this summer is lapbooking.  Lapbooking is a focused way of studying a topic that is fun and varied in activities.  One of my favorite sites to use is Homeschool Share.  The link is http://www.homeschoolshare.com/.  You can type in just about any subject and find some sort of lapbook activity.  Many follow along with a certain book.


Here are some pictures that we did last year on a lapbook about China.  It revolved around the book The Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack.  It is a great book that both of the kids enjoyed.






















I was able to use this lapbook for both JJ and Savannah.  They learned about the rivers of China, counting in Chinese,  as well as other interesting facts about the Chinese flag, ducks and their characteristics, etc. We did this in April of last year.

No comments: