Resurrection Lapbook

I just found this Resurrection lapbook this morning and I love it!  They have a little video showing each component of the lapbook and all the links to print everything out.  I just took what I liked and left what I didn't think "Rupert" would be interested in.  I'm also adding a couple more Bible verses to copy:

"He is not here; he has risen just as he said." ~Matthew 28:6
and
"Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." ~John 15:13

I'm currently getting it all set up for "Rupert" so he can just do the fun little activities and coloring and not have to worry about cutting everything out.

It's funny how the learning doesn't stop just because we're on spring break.  It just has a different flavor.  :-)

Photos of our lapbook:

1st Grade: Week 29 Highlights

Bible:  "Rupert" had 3 Bible verses to memorize for J-Force (his play practice) this week, and I think he's going to get them all down!  He has an incredible memory.  He only has to hear something a couple of times and he's got it.  I wish it were that easy for ME.

Speaking of his play, well, technically it's a musical, this week he found out that he got a small solo part and he gets to play the parts of Paul and Jesus at a couple of points in the play.  Add to that the ribbon dance that he gets to do, and you've got one excited little boy!  This will be a great experience for him and he is having a lot of fun with it.

Spelling:  Whew!  This week's list was HARD!  He got half of them down, and we'll work more on the other ones when we come back from spring break.

Math:  Now that "Rupert" has a pretty good handle on addition, we're starting to be more purposeful about subtraction.  This is a harder concept for him, but amazingly, it helps if I put things in terms of money.  "If you have 7 dollars and you spend 4, how much do you have left?"  works a lot better than "What's 7 minus 4?"  We also use his Funtastic Frogs manipulatives to help him to understand and visualize the problems.

History:  This week we were introduced to Alexander the Great.  "Rupert" had fun pretending to be Alexander while riding around on his stick horse, "Bucephalus", and conquering the Persian Empire.  We also learned how to tie a Gordian knot.

On Saturday, we had family over for an ancient Greek feast and Olympic games.  We had Greek pilaf, cheese, olives, grapes, apples, pears, bread, honey, almonds, spinach, Greek pasta salad, traditional Greek Easter cookies and cheese cake.

We did not follow the ancient Greek protocol for our Olympic games as we allowed girls to participate and none of the contestants competed in the nude.  The events we competed in were long jump, discus throw (frisbee), wheelbarrow race, foot race, and for the grand finale, a foot race with armor on!  The winners got the traditional wreath of olive leaves, fame in their home towns, and room and board for life (okay, maybe not for LIFE...that's up to their parents).

Our Greek name tags:

Science: We learned about our sense of taste and hearing.  We'll do more with hearing after spring break, but this week we watched Bill Nye and did a couple of fun experiments with sound.  In one of them, we made a model of an ear drum, sprinkled salt on it and then made loud noises (beating a pot with a spoon) to make the salt dance, showing the vibrations of the sound waves on the "ear drum".

Social Opportunities: Play practice, overnight at Grandma's (with a little Grandma schooling thrown in), kung fu, playdate with my friend's girls, art day, and our Greek feast/Olympic games.

1st Grade: Week 28 Highlights

Bible: We've really been enjoying the daily devotions at kids4truth.com They have been such a blessing for us. Check them out! "Rupert" has also been reading his children's Bible for phonics this week.

Grammar: We were introduced to three more sentence types this week- the command, the question and the exclamation. "Rupert" practiced writing a sample of each of the four types of sentences.

Science: This week we talked about our sense of touch. We also did a fun little activity where I put miscellaneous items into a paper bag, and "Rupert" had to put his hand in the bag, and determine what was in there by using his sense of touch. We also talked about how sensitive our fingers are to touch, and did the activity again, but this time wearing a mitten on his hand.

Some of the things in our touch bag:

History: We read about the Greeks (Sparta and Athens) coming together to fight off the Persians, the origin of the Marathon run, and finally, the Peloponnesian war. We also played a Peloponnesian war board game that was in our Story of the World Vol.1 Activity Book.

Math: We reviewed our skip counting songs and double and triple digit addition with carrying. After doing a great job on that, "Rupert" asked for a challenge: a 10-digit problem! My little math master did his challenge problem perfectly! We called it our "monster problem", so when he was done solving it, he drew in a monster face around it. :-)

Kung fu: "Rupert" learned more of his double stick form this week. I finished learning it, and I'm here to say, it is tough! Keeping track of what your body is doing is tricky enough sometimes, then adding a stick in each hand and trying to make those do what you want them to...I don't know how any kid would be coordinated enough to get it down. But they do...and he is.

Social Opportunities: We took it easy this week and just had kung fu class, a baking/crafting playdate for St. Patrick's Day, and PE class.

Our St. Patrick's Day craft will grow parsley "hair"

Our cupcakes had rainbow colors inside!

1st Grade: Week 24 Highlights

Spelling: "Rupert" aced his pretest on Monday, so got a break from spelling for the rest of the week. He was excited about that!

Bible: He has been learning 2 verses a week for the past couple of weeks. One for Sunday school and one for J-Force (the play he's doing). He's got a great memory, and learns both verses quite easily.

History: We learned more about ancient Greece this week. I think we'll be sticking with that for the next few weeks, then we'll wrap it up by having the grandparents and cousins over for a Greek feast and Olympic Games.

Social Opportunities: This week we had play practice, went to a friend's birthday party (Happy birthday, Naomi, my birthday twin!), went to two kung fu classes, had a playdate, did storytime at the library and participated in homeschool P.E. I look forward to the days where we don't have to be anywhere or do anything as much as the days filled with activities. "Rupert" is really enjoying all the fun things we've been doing lately, and is very happy with our new schedule.

1st Grade: Week 21 Highlights

Bible: We are really enjoying the Kids 4 Truth devotions online.

Sunday was "Rupert's" first play practice with the children's drama team at our church. They will be performing the musical, J-Force to the Rescue. He will have practice once a week for about 3 months, then there will be one intensive practice week where they will have practice 4 days, and finally, they will have several performances for the children in our church (6 different services, I believe), and a couple of outreach performances for other churches. It's a big commitment, but I think he will get a lot out of it.

Phonics: This week we took a break from The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading (OPG). With the success we had in reading Green Eggs and Ham last week, I decided to pick up some easy readers at the library, and give them a try. It was wonderful! "Rupert" gets overwhelmed with his OPG phonics lessons. It is a plain book with no pictures. When he sees only words and a lot of them, he gets overwhelmed with how much work there is to do. It doesn't matter if the words are easy or hard, all he sees is a lot of work! The pictures in the easy readers are a bit distracting at first, but after he spends a minute enjoying the pictures, he seems more focused and ready to read. This week he was reading words that I didn't know he could! And he was actually enjoying it! Needless to say, we're sticking with the early readers for a while (though I will probably throw some sight word study in there too).

Spelling: We finished up 1st grade spelling this week. Next week we will move to 2nd grade spelling which will have more difficult words and more of them. I have every intention of taking it slow and not letting "Rupert" get too crazy with it (like doing 4 spelling lists at a time, as he did a couple of times with the 1st grade set).

Writing: We took a break from our regular writing curriculum this week to write thank you notes for Christmas gifts. I still have to get those in the mail!

Grammar: We learned that the word "I" is always capitalized, and "Rupert" made up a story about waking up as a bunny. I wrote it down on paper as he told it/acted out the action verbs, then he went back through the written story and circled all the occurrences of the word "I" (with a capital letter). He enjoyed this creative activity.

Math: "Rupert" is still going strong with his math workbook, and averages about 4 pages a day. Since most of the concepts are familiar to him, I let him choose any page in the whole book to do, but I've already warned him that next year we will be working through the book from beginning to end. This week he worked on fractions, time, addition and subtraction.

History: We read about the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world.

Science: We read about worms and Octopi, and watched videos of worm dissections and an octopus taking down a shark! Very cool!

Cookbook Pick of the Week: Cream cheese and jam stuffed French toast. It was fun to make and pretty yummy too!

Social Activity: This week we participated in a homeschool group show and tell. "Rupert" had really been looking forward to it, and had a good time showing off his stuffed bunny, Flopsy.

Of course, we had kung fu class and storytime at the library as social opportunities as well.

1st Grade: Week 18 Highlights

We eased into this week, and had a great one. It helped that our history, Bible and reading all coincided this week, and we were able to kill 3 birds with one stone, thereby shortening our school day and allowing us to be done by noon every day (not bad at all considering we start working between 9 and 10am). Woo hoo!! We were also able to do a couple of fun projects to go along with our studies. We finally finished our Egyptian burial mask this week:

We also weaved a Moses basket to go along with our history and Bible lesson for this week:

"Rupert" took on two spelling lists this week and got them all right on his test. We practiced spelling the words out loud during practice times, and that seems to really work for him. Again, I don't know why I didn't figure this out before. He is an AUDITORY learner. Gotta get that through my head! :-)

Math: We started on one of his new workbooks this week, and so far he has done 16 pages! He loves it! It's mostly below his level, but there are some things that are fairly new to him (like telling time), and some that are just good review (like counting money and using tally marks). I've been giving him a sticker to put on each completed page, and he seems to really like that. I also think I'm going to reward him with an ice cream trip or something when he finishes the workbook. What? I like ice cream! Ahhhhh...keeping math fun...for both of us! :-)

Science: This week we talked about turtles and crocodiles and watched a Bill Nye video on reptiles. I've also resolved to do more science experiments. This kid LOVES experiments and I've been slacking. I've decided to do experiments even if they have nothing to do with what we're studying at the moment...just for the pure fun of it! This week we grew crystal flowers!

Social: Another resolution of mine is to put more effort into setting up regular playdates for "Rupert". Being an only child, he is desperate for someone to play with, and the brutal reality is that mommy just doesn't WANT to pretend she's a kitty all day. There really are some things that kids are just better at than adults. We have one regular playdate set up, and have plans in the works for at least one more. Two playdates a week and the flexibility to join in on other miscellaneous social activities should fill the need just fine.

Daily Devotions for Kids

Thanks to Morgan for posting this site! I just looked over it for a few minutes tonight, and it looks WONDERFUL! Thank you so much for sharing!!! I can't wait to start doing these daily with "Rupert". http://kids4truth.com/

1st Grade: Week 9 Highlights

Bible and History went together this week as we read about God's promise of a son to Abraham. We followed Abraham's journey from his birthplace in Ur to Haran, then later, on to Canaan on the map. We also read about the life of Joseph and how God used him to help the people of Egypt and surrounding areas.

Writing: We spent our writing time on birthday thank you notes this week. "Rupert" also enjoyed drawing pictures for his friends on the back of each note.

Math: I've decided to move along in math even though "Rupert" hasn't memorized the addition facts we have done to date. For the next couple of weeks, we'll loosely review addition, then we'll move on. I'm getting more relaxed with the curriculum, and not following it to a T. I think this is better for his individual learning style.

Science: This week we studied skunks and rabbits. "Rupert" especially liked that rabbits have their own version of recycling (eating their droppings until they come out hard and dry and have no nutrition left in them), and that their babies are called "kittens".

ASL: We learned the signs for several fruits and vegetables and for the colors of the rainbow.

Spelling: I gave "Rupert" 2 spelling lists this week, and there was just one word that he needed practice on. The spelling words will be getting harder soon.

And here is this week's Chicken Mummy photo update:

1st Grade: Week 3 Highlights

Another great week in the first grade! The lines of communication are open, and we've made a couple adjustments. I am so happy to have that freedom! One day this week we even grabbed a couple of books and did some of our school work at Starbucks. I love that we have that flexibility. Here's what we've been up to:

Bible: We didn't have any homework from his Sunday School class this week since the kids are moving up to their new classes on Sunday, so we decided to just have fun reading stories from his children's Bible. One night this week, I went upstairs and heard him talking in his room. I couldn't make out what he was saying, but his voice was very alive and animated. I was sure he was talking to his cousin. I went in to check on him and didn't see anyone, so I asked who he was talking to. He told me he was praying. :-)

Writing and Grammar: These subjects aren't the most exciting, but Rupert is learning. There's a lot of repetition so he's really going to know the definition of a noun, what you do to a proper noun, and how to punctuate the end of a sentence.

Phonics: We've invented a couple of games that help keep Rupert's interest when we are doing phonics. Instead of reading straight out of the phonics lesson book (which tends to overwhelm him because there are SO many words to read), I write his sentences one by one on the white board. Then I start slowly erasing the sentence letter by letter, and he has to read it before I get to it with the eraser. It's amazing how much of a difference this makes in the speed of his reading.

Another game we invented is where I write a sentence on the white board and I tell him it is SO HARD. "You'll never get THIS!", I say. He reads it, and I act like I'm so amazed I don't know what to do. We played this over and over again for about 40 minutes yesterday before I said, "Ok, we're done with phonics!", and he was disappointed that we had to stop. :-)

Math: This is another subject where we have made adjustments. We'd been working with the Math-U-See manipulative blocks quite a bit. Rupert said to me, "All we do for math is play with blocks. I don't like that! I thought we would be doing math problems!" So, as requested, the next day he got to do a printout of addition problems. Ahhhh, that's what he'd been waiting for!

History: We learned about the annual flooding of the Nile River and how the early farmers there used it to their advantage. We also made a model of the Nile which we will "flood" weekly in hopes of growing a nice, lush crop of grass on the banks.

Science: We studied lions and cheetahs and did a project to show how a cat's eye works to reflect light in the dark. We also studied elephants this week.

ASL: We learned all the signs on the Signing Time video we got at the library. The signs we learned were relating to family, fun and feelings. There were about 40 signs in all, so Rupert knows somewhere around 60-70 signs altogether now.

Spelling and Reading: We had another easy spelling week. Rupert got all this words correct on the first try, so we took the rest of the week off for spelling. We've been reading Homer Price by Robert McCloskey this week, and Rupert has been enjoying that. We've also been listening to audio recordings of the Ramona books by Beverly Cleary while we're driving in the truck. So far, we've heard Beezus and Ramona, Ramona the Pest, Ramona the Brave, and Ramona and her Father. We have really been enjoying these stories!

1st Grade: Week 2 Highlights

Things are going along quite well. This week Rupert wrote his Sunday School teacher a thank you note since this coming Sunday will be his last day in her class. He will be in the first grade class the following week.

We slowed down a bit in math to be sure that Rupert gets his addition facts down cold. He likes math and understands the concept of addition, we just need to work on memorizing those facts so he can spit them out in a split second. I think taking a little extra time here will really benefit him in the end.

Phonics is Rupert's least favorite subject. I'm not exactly sure why. I think he gets a little overwhelmed when he sees many words on a page and knows he as to read them ALL. To make it more fun for him, I had him act out the sentences we was reading, and although that took longer, he had more fun with it.

Grammar and Writing are going along well. So far I really like the materials I've chosen to use with him. He is learning about nouns and proper nouns, capitalization and punctuation, and practicing his listening and narration skills. He has also memorized a poem.

We talked about habitats in science this week and we made a diorama of a desert habitat. Rupert chose to add cacti, a camel and a rattlesnake to his habitat diorama. I think it came out cute.

In history, we learned about the Nomads and how they eventually became farmers. After learning all about them, we pretended to be Nomads, moving our tent from place to place in search of food. We found berries and hunted wild animals (AKA the family cat) to eat. Finally we settled in the "Fertile Crescent" and learned to farm. Rupert really enjoyed this little game, and I know that playing it really set the things we learned this week in his mind.

Sunday School Craft

I thought this was cute. They made these stand-up crosses and then decorated them how they liked in Sunday School yesterday. I love G's message...cute misspellings and all! :-)

Bible Timeline for Kids

I just found this wonderful Bible timeline! This is a great way for kids to see the chronological order of their Bible stories! I can't wait to print this out, color it together and put it up in our school room!

Daniel in the Lion's Den

Here's G's Lincoln log version of Daniel in the lion's den, starring Gonzo as Daniel. :-)

Our Christmas Project is Ready!

We did the last of our baking today and made our little goody bags. We will hand these out to the people we come in contact with in our community. Just a little homemade Christmas gift to share the love of God. We have attached a Christmas Bible verse to each package to remind people of the real meaning of Christmas. We're planning to give these out next week to our librarians, the grocery store clerk, the UPS man...anyone we come in contact with as we go about our day. We are praying that God will use us to touch the world around us.

This Week's Theme: Cranberry Thanksgiving

Our Five in a Row book this week was Cranberry Thanksgiving by Harry Devlin. It was a fun holiday book with lots of great activities to go along. Some of the activities we did this week to go with the story were:

1) We tried fresh, whole cranberries and dried cranberries for a snack.

2) We talked about nicknames.

3) Our Bible verse for the week was "Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." 1 Samuel 16:7 It went perfectly with the way the grandmother in the story judges Mr. Whiskers by the way he looks.

4) One of the illustrations is done in silhouette, so we talked about what a silhouette is and made

our own silhouettes using a bright light and G's easel paper. We also took a photo using the

silhouette technique.

5) For science, we did a project to find out how an alkaline ingredient like baking soda would react with an acidic ingredient like yogurt, lemon juice or vinegar. We found that it makes bubbles of carbon dioxide, and that's what makes a cake rise when baking.

6) We made Grandmother's famous Cranberry Bread. The recipe was at the end of the book.

Noah's Ark

We've been reading the story of Noah's Ark this week, and I thought it would be fun for G to paint a picture to go with the story. He loved the idea!There's a dove in the sky, then left to right we have a turtle, Noah, an alligator, a giraffe and an elephant.

Week 2: Storm in the Night

This week's FIAR book was Storm in the Night. We talked about storms and clouds, and oddly enough, there wasn't a single cloud in the sky all week. They will roll in soon enough, and when they do we will be there scoping them out and identifying them by type. We also reviewed onomatopoeia, discussed story setting, and talked about what grandparents were like as children. We even made our own cloud for science!

Our Bible story for this week was the fall of man. We learned that Adam and Eve brought sin into the world when they disobeyed God.

Week 1: A Pair of Red Clogs

This week we read A Pair of Red Clogs for our Five in a Row book, so we took the opportunity to learn a bit about Japan. We did lots of fun activities to go along with the book:
1. We found Japan on the world map
2. We colored the Japanese flag and added it to our flags of the world banner
3. We read about Japanese culture
4. We learned to count to 10 in Japanese
5. We read Haiku poetry
6. We did some origami
7. We read about sumo wrestling and had our own sumo wrestling match
8. We ate at a Japanese steak house and visited with Japanese people and saw real kimonos
9. We visited Uncle Loren who showed us his bonsai trees
10. We listened to Japanese music

Here is a photo of what G and Grandma made during origami time:

For Bible time this week, we read the story of creation and our memory verse was Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

In science, we did a couple of nature walks in different areas and found plant life like blackberry vines, huckleberry bushes and ivy. We also saw animal life such as birds, a snake, grasshoppers, squirrels and rabbits. A walk by a local lake turned up lots of empty snail shells.

We also worked with phonics, history, Spanish, math, and handwriting, and we had a fun day at the park with our homeschool group too! We had a fun first week of kindergarten!!