January 30, 2008

In the Works ~ Rwanda, Africa Lapbook

One of the things we are focusing on for our Rwanda study is our sponsored child, Albert. The entire lapbook stemmed from our new relationship with him and we are learning as much as we can about him, his life and his country. P couldn’t wait to write his 1st letter to Albert, this is the longest letter he has ever written, it warmed my heart to know that he was so thrilled to be writing and that he didn’t complain at all (as he sometimes can when writing anything of length). Here he is writing to Albert, you can see how he has Albert’s photo up on his computer screen :).

And here is his letter…

Here’s the other “letter” we are sending him in our 1st envelope, we worked on this part together…



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January 28, 2008

In the Works ~ Rwanda, Africa Lapbook

We are working hard and learning a lot through our lapbook on Rwanda. We “gave” our son a sponsored child (through World Vision) for Christmas. The little boy we are sponsoring is P’s age and P is REALLY enjoying learning all about Albert and his country. It has been a wonderful experience for us all. One of the really neat things I found to aid our study of Africa is this great online software. Here’s P playing the Africa game, learning the names of the countries!



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January 24, 2008

Portable Word Wall

Every now and then I am hit with what a bright idea (at least it seems bright to me!) and today it happened and I was SO excited because I have been trying to decide a solution to this for awhile now! We have a big word wall down in our school room, here’s a photo of part of it.We filled it up with our Kindergarten words and I really want to leave it up so it will be there when my toddler is ready to begin learning ABC’s and words. BUT, I didn’t want to use this word wall for 1st grade, partly because we have more words and there isn’t space for the size and also we have begun to do school upstairs more and more (not in our actual schoolroom). So, I have went back and forth about what to do until today! I looked over and noticed a foam project board thing I had for something else and it hit me…a portable word wall! Here’s what I created, using the letter cards and actual words from his 1st grade Calvert curriculum. I also like that we can keep this and make a new word wall each grade level. It folds up to a poster board size and stores away so easily, I am so happy!



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January 18, 2008

In the Works ~ Weather Lapbook

We’re almost done with our weather lapbook! I will post final photos next week, but for now here is the link to the one mini book I made myself for it, it’s about the sun. He learned a lot from this study, so did I! Next week we begin our unit on the night sky: moon, stars, planets, etc. He is really excited!



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January 15, 2008

Non Stop Learning…

I read a wonderful post over at Jamin’s blog yesterday, about creating a learning rich environment. I couldn’t agree with her more. Even though I have only been homeschooling for a couple of years, I have always believed in my home being a learning rich environment, probably comes form having been a school teacher.

As my younger son (age 20 months now) grows up in a homeschool environment I notice how much more “rich” his environment is than P’s was at this age. K is surrounded by learning toys, as I saw him playing with our little boxes yesterday, I realized that everything he was playing with wasn’t around when P was his age. They were all things we have acquired since beginning to homeschool! K loves these things…which I like to refer to as open-ended toys. Of course I was overjoyed to here him saying, “coocool” (circle) and naming some colors. He has just naturally picked up on so much by being immersed in it.Here’s a photo of one of the main parts of our rich learning environment…our beloved drawers from Target :). I was in heaven the day I got these for the schoolroom! They are filled with (and labeled so P can find everything)…play doh, drawing paper, construction paper, counting bears, unifex cubes, craft supplies, stickers, coloring books, Color Wonder supplies, workbooks, notepads, writing supplies, art smocks, small blocks, completed lapbooks (so he can go back and look at old ones, which he does a lot) and more. Since this photo was taken I added another set of drawers, I’m telling you, I LOVE them!Be sure to check out Jamin’s blog if you don’t already, she has some wonderful ideas and thoughts about this topic!



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