Alicia64 Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 Hi Everyone, As I said earlier, I'm brand new. When I come across unit studies (I just purchased FIAR's manual), I wonder how I'll have time to plan even a few of the activities, pull on book on the topic from the library, make food from the topic etc. -- and still have time to work with my kid. How do you do this? Do you take time each week to plan? Or? Also, what is a lapbook? I know it should be obvious, but I can't tell. Is it just printed out pages on the particular unit study? Any planning info. very appreciated. Alicia Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Alfred Academy Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 Lapbooks are way fun...at least we think so. Either you love them or you hate them. Here is a great squidoo lense that explains them and here is a great site for some free ones for you to try. I plan my science activities around the lapbooks that are available from this site. As far as planning goes, I plan out my history and science about 10 weeks in advance. It takes about a week because I get EVERYTHING ready...book lists (including checking to make sure the library or our charter school has our books needed), notebooking pages printed out, maps printed out, worksheets printed or copied, lapbooking booklets cut out and folded, ect. Math and Language Arts don't take much planning as we just do the next lessons. As far as our daily schedule, we school from around 9 to 12. It is a balancing act trying to work between the two boys (mine are 2 yrs. apart) but I am starting to get the hang of it. Hope this helps!:001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parrothead Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 Hi Everyone, As I said earlier, I'm brand new. When I come across unit studies (I just purchased FIAR's manual), I wonder how I'll have time to plan even a few of the activities, pull on book on the topic from the library, make food from the topic etc. -- and still have time to work with my kid. How do you do this? Do you take time each week to plan? Or? Also, what is a lapbook? I know it should be obvious, but I can't tell. Is it just printed out pages on the particular unit study? Any planning info. very appreciated. Alicia For me planning is for the entire year in advance. I do it all over a week or two once the books start coming in. Some subjects are very easy, do the next thing. Page 1 starts on Day 1 and the last page is done on the last day of school. I can do this with math, grammar, spelling, reading and penmanship. Other things take more planning. Science and history get an outline. Each week is devoted to a particular topic and each day in the week has something to do with said topic. I've got an outline started for history that looks like this: Week 1 Day 1: Read from KHE - The First Humans. Complete single point outline Day 2: Look up area humans first appeard on the globe, atlas and do mapping page Day 3: Timeline Day 4: Extra reading from "A Book I Can't Remember the Name of Right This Minute" Day 5: Project - cave drawings/paintings By the time school starts in the fall I'll have the outline for history finished and also one for science. Since we are starting a new writing program (Classical Writing) I don't know how that is going to work as I don't have the books in my hands yet. A lapbook can be seen at www.handsofachild.com If that isn't the exact web address, do a search for In the Hands of a Child specifically or lapbooking generally. You should get hits enough to see one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alicia64 Posted February 10, 2009 Author Share Posted February 10, 2009 Thanks! So, a lapbook is a way to make the topic "come alive" in a way, right? Do you guys end up with tons of these things? How do you store them? They don't look small. I'm trying to envision my almost six year old boys making these. I think I'd end up doing the work, they'd glance at them and that would be the end of it. Are lapbooks better for older ages? Alicia Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parrothead Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 We've got a few done. Dd still likes to look at the ones she did in 1st and 2nd grade. The easiest ones for the littles are the ones geared to their ages. I like In the Hands of a Child because 1. I'm not creative enough to put them together by myself and 2. they make them for specific ages. Only don't do what I did and cut out ALL the little books for the main folder yourself. I did that to save time, and dd didn't learn to cut paper for quite some time. All of ours are file folder size. There again that creativity (or incentive) isn't there to cut poster board out into a giant butterfly shape. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samba2nite Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 My experience with the lapbooks concept is for our family. The girls like them and my son hates them. He hates anything that requires fine motor skills and looks like an art project. The girls LOVE them. Also in terms of planning....well I bought a program in a box so to speak and tweak it as I see fit. I have found that it works well for me .... oh yes and the yahoos! We are using www.sonlight.com I know there are many many out there, but I loved the idea that it came with everything start to finish and all I had to do was open and start reading and teaching. The schedule, the timelines, the guides, the books and all are in one big box. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patricia in WA Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 I posted about my FIAR schedule here. Let me know if you want any more information. HTHs, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Closeacademy Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 How do you do this? Do you take time each week to plan? Or? Every other week, usually whatever day library day lands on, I ask my dds what they want to learn about over the next two weeks. I then check and see if my library has books on the topic that corresponds with the lapbook/unit they want to do. At this point, I bring out notebook or planning sheets and update where we are at in non-unit studies subjects: phonics, math, Latin, Story of the World, etc. These planning sheets are filled out for these subjects when we change levels but the unit study part is left blank. Then, I print out all the components of the lapbook and write down what we want to do each day. If we do decide to cook (never happens), I would add items that we would need to the grocery list for that week so it would be ready. If there is a large project (rarely happens), I gather the stuff into plastic baggies and put it with all the stuff we will need for the next two weeks. I end up with at the beginning of a two week cycle: large envelopes containing loose worksheets (2 weeks worth for subjects that do not have workbooks or texts), the lapbook components, and a schedule taped to the front. If we have baggies, I would staple them to the back of the envelopes which are stapled together as well so I have everything together except texts and workbooks which are kept on the shelf. Also, what is a lapbook? A lapbook is basically a file folder(s) that contain minibooks which explore the main points of the unit study. If you click on my signature link to my blog, I have lots of photos there of our lapbooks. We really like homeschoolshare.com and there are links in my blog to that as well. The lapbooks there are free and a lot correspond to Five in a Row. Hope this helps.:001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenny in Florida Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 How do you do this? Do you take time each week to plan? Or? When mine were younger, I used to have a general outline of how much of each thing we needed to accomplish each week in order to finish by the end of our academic year. My husband designed a spreadsheet for me that allowed me to plug in information about the beginning and end of our school year, what days we were out of the house each week for activities, what holidays we were taking, how many pages or lessons there were in each resource, etc. It would then shoot out the number of pages or lessons of each thing we needed to do each week. Then, I would sit down with all of the books every Sunday evening and map out the specifics for that week. But I got to the point at which I just dreaded that weekly planning session. So, a few years ago, I decided to try planning the whole year in advance over the summer. I sat down with all the books and curriculum materials and figured out how many weeks we were going to have and worked it all out. I created a table for each week of the year that showed what I wanted to do in each subject. I included notes for myself about craft projects and DVDs and field trips and everything. Then, I printed out the pages and put them in a three-ring binder that sits on my desk. Each week, all I had to do was look over the page for that week and make sure I had the right supplies on hand. I loved it. So, I've continued to do that every year since. Yes, I occasionally have to re-work things a little when we hit a bump in the road or go off track for some reason. But I am now at a point where I really only have to visit the whole planning thing a couple of times a year. For example, this year, I planned over the summer, but we got a bit behind in the fall. We ended up deciding to drop one subject entirely. So, just after Christmas, I sat down and took stock of exactly where we were, then re-allocated the left-over work to fit neatly in the second semester. It took me most of one day, but we're now back on track, and I probably won't have to mess with it again this year. Here's a link to an entry on my blog that includes a sample week's plan: http://tweakedacademy.blogspot.com/2008/09/cheating.html Hope that gives you some ideas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ummtafari Posted February 10, 2009 Share Posted February 10, 2009 Thanks! I'm trying to envision my almost six year old boys making these. I think I'd end up doing the work, they'd glance at them and that would be the end of it. Are lapbooks better for older ages? Alicia LOL, that is exactly how it works for this age! I think the simpler you keep it the better! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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