using Apologia Astronomy Notebook, Lapbooking? what did you do?

[greenmamato3]

so i am transitioning over to astronomy after completing our biology studies.

 

i was looking at the notebooking (spiral bound) available for the Astronomy tonight, b/c it's quite different than the freebie notebooking pages i have downloaded. there seems to be a bit more there, which i think the kids would beneift from (including ideas for additional experiments, copywork, and mini books to create), but then i noticed that there's a company called knowledge box as well as liveandlearn press that have each produced now a lapbook approach to the apologia astronomy.

i've been looking at them, and b/c i'd really like to include younger DDs hands-on style of learning (i.e. busy body that is easily directed! yay!), and b/c i think it would be a fun switch of pace from our typical notebooking style that only includes her minimally, i was thinking of choosing one or the other lapbooks to add. we are not lapbookers by any stretch of the imagination, though have done two very small ones in the last 1.5 yrs.

 

here are some links .... then i'll ask questions to you below, based on your personal experience with the astronomy. :)

 

http://www.liveandlearnpress.com/astronomy.pdf

http://www.rainbowresource.com/prodlist.php?sid=1282105998-1719846&subject=11&category=2714

http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product_slideshow?sku=238601&actual_sku=238601&slide=99&action=Next

you can see other views of it here

https://apologia.securesites.net/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=127

[i like the notebook at LEAST b/c it's full color, etc, and has some cutting pasting etc to it .... the free printable notebooking pages don't have either of those features :( } but the notebook available for purchase has the exact same notebooking questions as the text itself.

 

-do you think that b/c astronomy is a concept more nebulous to children than say botany or zoology, it's worth it to have a little bit more hands on busy-work like a lapbook? {our kids aren't particularly bent toward astronomy to begin with and are more biology-loving kids, but part of this could be due to just basic exposure .... they've walked through a field of flowers many more times than they've flown to the moon ;) }

 

-or do you think (as i tend to think) that the lapbooks might just wind up being busy work with little learning involved? i was thinking that since we'll be reading the text and constructing the lapbook as we go, there might be a higher chance of learning than when doing like a literature lapbook where you have to read a whole stack of books in etc ....

-are there enough experiments *in* the text itself that are easy to do and accessible to the younger end of the suggested grade level that additional ones would simply be a nuisance?

 

please know, i'm not at all bashing lapbooks in my post; i really prefer notebooking b/c it just seems simpler and keeps the flow of the day more reliable since we still have a toddler to consider .... i'm a bit jaded b/c i think they aren't the best match of learning modality for my oldest but really really want him to enjoy and glean from astronomy as much as possible *and* i really want my younger daughter to not feel like she's just along for the ride but rather relaly has something at her disposal that she can LEARN astronomy with .... she's only 5.5 and normally i don't "require" her to be a part of science time but she's welcome to and is starting to show a bit more interest here and there .... she's only a few months into her K year with me. she seems to really be a kinesthetic auditory learner. older brother is more visual than anything else.

 

i'd really like to understand the pros and cons to the knowledge box v. the livenlearn. {and which components should i purchase for each?}

and i'd really like to hear from someone who has used the notebook with the younger kiddos to see whether it left a little to be desired. :bigear:

 

thanks so much!!! :)

[SonshineLearner]

I don't know... yet... but I ordered it today! If you order it now... CBD has a discount code for free shipping :)

[greenmamato3]

what's the discount code for FS?

[lisak]

Here is another free option for you: http://www.hslaunch.com/mypage/profile/745

 

This mom (Jessica Feiciano) wrote these for her son to use before the other options were available.

[SonshineLearner]

If it's still valid....

313114TS

is the coupon code

:)

[Aconnolley]

We are using Jessica's free Astronomy Lapbook. It is beautiful, and my 2 younger kids (5 and 7) really like it. I printed out a few of the free notebooking pages for them to use and made up my own vocabulary crossword puzzles. They put their completed mini books in their notebooks probably much the same as a Live and Learn notebook works.

 

I purchased the Apologia Journal for my oldest (9) since I didn't think that he would like as much hands on stuff. He likes the journal, but was a little disappointed that he didn't have as many mini books as the girls. I ended up printing a few for him to add to his Journal. :-)

 

I would be surprised if either of the other lapbooks are nicer than the ones Jessica made. I think that she did a great job with both the Astronomy and Zoology ones she made!

 

Angela

[greenmamato3]

so when you do a mini book, do you plug it into a file folder like a lapbook or do you put it into a notebook? i'm confused.

 

if you use Jessica's free lapbook, where do you HOUSE all that stuff?! i'm so new at this lapbooking stuff .... do you do one lapbook per chapter or one for the entire course?

 

i can't believe how elaborate and lovely the free pages are from jessica!

thanks so much for all this info!

[Swirl]

We used the Knowledge Box Central CD-ROM's from Rainbow Resources last year to create DD's lapbook. DD was in 1st grade and DS was in 5th grade. My son likes the notebooking method (we make our own notebook pages), but I wanted something a little less intensive for my 1st grader. It worked well for us.

 

I bought the CD-ROM's only and printed the pages myself. (I'm cheap.) I printed off all the instructions and pages for the year and made an instruction notebook for myself. This was the first lapbook we've ever done (actually it was done in two separate lapbooks- one for each semester), but they turned out nice. DD is proud of them and shows them off to visitors in our home. I'm not at all a hands-on, crafty person and this was doable for even me. :)

 

I will try to describe how we used it. There are a bunch of little lapbooks that go along with the reading. The little books are mostly blank inside to fill in as much information as you choose. (I drew in lines.) When we finished reading a section that had a lapbook, I would ask questions and discuss the reading with DD. Next, I would write out what I wanted DD to remember about the reading. (Usually one to three sentences.) I would have her read out loud what I wrote, then she would copy it onto the little lapbook (sometimes color the page too). I then would put it together and glue it in the correct spot. Most of the time there was one lapbook per reading. DD just worked along with DS on the book projects. For sure she didn't retain all the information (and there is A LOT), but she did seem to learn quite a bit. She had quite the discussion the other day with the neighbor girl about the meteor shower! :)

 

I did find several mistakes in the instructions- but I was able to figure out what I needed to do. If you happen to buy that one let me know, and I'll be glad to tell you what I found if it would make it easier for you. ;)

[Aconnolley]

I knew that my kids wouldn't enjoy all of the cutting involved, so I spent hours over the summer cutting out all of the mini books. (Jessica's) I used paper clips to hold chapters together and stored them in ziplocks. We are kind of doing a notebook/lapbook combo, so we just glue them onto paper in their three bring binders. I used the ones with a see through pocket on the outside and made up a nice cover page using Word with astronomy pictures for each of them. We are only on chapter 2, but I just got out the correct mini books as we went along and they wrote the info or narrated it to me to write in the mini books and glued them on paper that had been 3 hole punched. (card stock would be better) I think that I prefer this the the actual lapbook setup. That way, we can do a few notebook pages along the way. It also gives a place for the vocabulary crosswords that I made up etc.

 

I am really new to lapbooking myself, but it is working alright so far. :-)

 

Angela

[Hedgehogs4]

-or do you think (as i tend to think) that the lapbooks might just wind up being busy work with little learning involved? i was thinking that since we'll be reading the text and constructing the lapbook as we go, there might be a higher chance of learning than when doing like a literature lapbook where you have to read a whole stack of books in etc ....

 

 

i think that depends on if how you do lapbooks. we did ours from scratch...i didn't use a pattern or any kind of "plug and play" lapbooks. The kids did their own research and made the lapbooks completely from scratch (with my help). they learned A LOT and were so proud of their work. It really sticks with them as a result. For us, lapbooking is a BIG DEAL and we don't use it for everything, so what we really want to dig into gets a lapbook, and the TLC taken to make it makes it worthwhile.

[greenmamato3]

i'm just returning to our thread .... we ended up deciding to do a charlotte mason look at geography (knowledge quest Child's Geography) for several months and now are nearing the end of that. we will proceed to the astronomy next. i'm excited.

 

after re-reading, re-checking the free site (jess), and looking again the knowledge box option, i think i'm going to print the free ones, paste them into a three ring binder with cardstock (even colored maybe!) as a PP suggested, and then intersperse notebooking from the free lapbook on the jeannie's site at apologia ....

 

our DD has come a LONG way with her handwriting, desire to be involved, and reading in the months that we've been working with the child's geo, so i feel we're in a better place to ALL do the astronomy instead of just having her tag along as she wishes. {hers will still be flexy than older brother's involvement}.

 

we've done a johnny appleseed lapbook, as well as a lapbook centering around hermit carbs (eric carle) in the last few months .... helps me understand how lapbooking works for our kids :)

 

but i have a question in all of this: HOW IN THE WORLD do you keep track of and print all the files on J's site .... there are so many ....

did you find that printing ALL of them for each chapter was necessary?

ALSO, any clue what the non-ECW files are related to? like the heraldry ones? they are wonderfully done, and they strike my curiosity.

 

is there a yahoo group for her site?

[Aconnolley]

I just printed them instead of saving them. I printed all of the ones that I thought that we would need for the year. Some chapters have A LOT of mini books! My 7yo enjoys lapbooks, but there were even more than she wanted to do sometimes. I offered to help her do some of the writing. For my 5 year old, I only printed the "Who am I" books and the vocabulary books. They don't require any writing. I only printed more for her when she requested it.

 

I believe that Jessica shut down her Yahoo groups this January because she didn't have time to maintain them.

 

We are just finishing up Saturn this week. We have enjoyed it. I am not pushing too much since we don't have that many chapters left.

 

Enjoy!

 

Angela

[greenmamato3]

thanks, angela ;)

about how long each week did you devote to the reading of the chapter & the notebooking/lapbooking per week? how many weeks are you devoting to the apologia in total (approximately .... i know there will be hiccups along the way).

just trying to get a grasp of this. :) trying to quell my stress of taking on the lapbooking component. :)

[Aconnolley]

You are welcome. :) I'm not sure if I'll be much help on this one though. I guess that I am pretty relaxed about it. I usually read while the kids are eating breakfast or lunch, so I would have a hard time putting a time on it. Probably 15-20 minutes a couple times a week. ? They enjoy it and remind me if I forget though. I usually figure 2 weeks per chapter. I can finish all of the reading the first week and then lapbook and notebook the second, or sometimes I break it up with lapbooking as we go. (we sometimes forget the stuff that we read last week and have to do a quick review) Since there are only 14 chapters, we will finish up with plenty of time to spare. I will fill in with other topics that they are interested in.

 

Don't stress over the lapbook part. You can do as few or many as you want. The first 2 Apologia books we did, we just read through and talked about. The retention probably wasn't as good as with the lapbooks, but they did learn and we enjoyed it! :tongue_smilie: Honestly, I think that at this age, you are laying foundations. There probably isn't anything that they won't get exposed to again later.

 

So far, my kids think of science and history as the "fun" part of our day. (No, they don't love math and grammar! ) I am really trying to keep it that way even as I require a bit more out of them. There is so much to worry about in homeschooling...am I doing enough of this or that?..... I just decided that we were going to enjoy science and history and learn as much has we could. I memorized tons of facts to pass science/history tests, and they didn't mean anything to me so they didn't stick with me at all. I am amazed at what all my brain didn't retain! :lol: But I do remember having a wonderful science teacher in 8th grade. He loved geology and his passion was evident in his teaching. I remember more from that class than anything else. I hope that I can made science and history real and alive for my kids like that. ;)

 

Sorry, I blubbered a bit. Anyway, I think that the most helpful thing for me was having the minibooks precut, folded, and organized by chapter and kid. We had less frustration when they were easily accessible when we wanted. That may have been more important for me since I didn't have everything clearly scheduled and mapped out. :-) I needed it to be grab and go on short notice.

 

I 'm sure you will find a method of doing and scheduling it that works perfectly for you and your kiddoes. Thankfully, we can always change it if it isn't working.:001_smile::

 

I hope that you enjoy it. Let us know how it goes. I always find it helpful to get ideas from how others do things.

 

Angela

[greenmamato3]

again, thanks, angela! this is really helpful! :)

[AngelBee]

i think that depends on if how you do lapbooks. we did ours from scratch...i didn't use a pattern or any kind of "plug and play" lapbooks. The kids did their own research and made the lapbooks completely from scratch (with my help). they learned A LOT and were so proud of their work. It really sticks with them as a result. For us, lapbooking is a BIG DEAL and we don't use it for everything, so what we really want to dig into gets a lapbook, and the TLC taken to make it makes it worthwhile.

Do you have them on your blog at all? Just trying to get some motivation. :)