Learning Lapbooks and Luggin' Laundry

"Wake up, Mom, it's the first day of school!"

As I raised my eyebrows, up into my hairline, in an effort to get my eyes to open..... I see two of my Princesses dressed and eager to start the day.

Well.... the little one was wearing a swimming suit...but to her that's dressed.  It's hot here...remember!  And the way I figure it, it's less clothes to wash when it's all one piece.  See... I think things through.  {wink}

I sent them to wake up the other Sleeping Beauty and I went to mix up some waffle batter.  {yummy}  The castle was in the usual "day-after-Sunday-looks-like-a-hurricane-hit" state.  So while I was stirring with one hand, I was filling the sink with dirty dishes with the other and using my feet to make a pile, out of the toys, on the floor.  Mothers are such wonderful multi-taskers.

Moriah loves to cook the waffles, so I left her to that as I gathered laundry and ran around doing the many other {fulfilling} tasks that make up being a mom and wife.

Our last school year was very....fun and I think the girls learned a lot.  Because of traveling the entire United States (several times) and moving to a different country, I decided to not even start organized daily lessons until we were settled.  I don't think this put my girls behind, because I'm continually reading to them and I always carried different types of flashcards to work on while we drove for days without stopping.  {the good ole days....deputation}

I'm thinking, that with a new baby due during this school year I'm going to have to be extra organized.  So that is why we started our school year today.  The 2nd day of August.

We have a big, heavy box of beauuuutiful fresh-smelling A Beka books, waiting for us in Louisiana.  When I first realized that we would not be able to start with them, I was very disappointed.  I'm over that though...life rarely goes like I plan.

I started reading about homeschool lapbooks on line.  It's not the convention way to learn, but I love them.  We started with several different themes.  We have a Bible folder, My Body folder (science), American money folder (math), Princess Addition folder (math),  My Jamaica folder (social studies),  Alexis has two folders with Shapes/ Colors and Letters/ Busy work.  I even made a folder for Eden (who always notices when the other girl's have something).  Eden's folder contains colors and shapes, and I'm going to add small numbers and beginning letters.  Moriah is also doing Penmanship and some of the A Beka readers.

The Princesses were decorating their Bible Folders.  Today it contains ABC A Beka memorization cards.
But I plan on adding the books of the OT and some learning ideas from the OT.  

Alexis said, "Eden yours looks cool."
Eden turned to me and said, "Mama, Allie say me cool!"

I'm not sure how others do this, but we start with a few things in their folder and we add new learning tools and ideas everyday.  I think they are really going to enjoy them and have fun.

 

This is their American Money Folder.  I had these cardboard coins in my teaching stash and they were perfect. We talked about the different names of basic coins and how to spell them.  We used a cute little riddle and also played a heads and tails game.


Most of the ideas I have in my lapbooks are from other's ideas off of homeschool blogs.  I don't claim to think of them all by myself.  I believe in giving credit where credit is do, whenever possible.  So here are a few of those blogs.  I looked at so many and took notes from so many that I couldn't mention them all.


This one has some cute ideas on Science Lapbooks.  One Little, Two Little .  She also has ideas and downloads for a cute Curious George lapbook and I printed some out for Alexis's K-4 busy book.

This one has several fun ideas click on 1 + 1 + 1 = 1 .

Lapbook Lessons site has many good ideas.  I really liked their Bible lapbooks, I plan on using some of their Fruit of the Spirit ideas.

I found a couple of neat ideas on Money lapbooks on this site Preparation Education