I'm working on what we are going to do this year with Joy... We've been doing My Father's World for Bible/Social studies/Science, and I really like it a lot. However... Last year I wasn't feeling very well a lot of the time, and we didn't do much of the science at all (we made sure we did reading, writing, & math every day... history, science, and Spanish - not so much), so we still have perfectly good curriculum to go through for that. Joy goes to the homeschool class on Tuesday's during our church's ladies' Bible study, and they're going through the book of Mark. They're going to continue it this year and it's even better than the Bible part of MFW, so we don't do the MFW Bible stuff. We did get through enough of the American history last year in MFW's Adventures, that we don't want to do that again this year. She knows all of her states, and we're working on the capitals, but we're ready to move on to the next step. It seems silly, however, to buy the next year's worth of MFW if all we are going to do out of it is the social studies, so I've been looking for alternative social studies curricula. I really like what MFW would be doing next year - it's the "Exploring Countries and Cultures" package: http://www.mfwbooks.com/ecc.htm Joy and I both like maps and the whole geography thing, and I love the fact that MFW incorporates missionary stories into their curriculum. At first I was looking at all of the supplemental books they are offering and thinking about just getting those (cheaper, on other sites mostly) and doing my own version of MFW. And then I started thinking about unit studies... After doing a little research (and choking a little at the prices of some of the unit studies I saw), I ended up looking at this: http://www.theoldschoolhousestore.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=75&products_id=2077 and now I'm thinking about doing lapbooks for each continent. Except I've never done lapbooks before, or even thought a great deal about them except when I see one of you creative people posting about them. So... tell me about lapbooking. I know you use manila file folders and make little books, right? What else goes into a lapbook? Is Knowledge Box a good company for those? Do you buy them (where? and for how much?), or just make them up? If you make them up, what/how/help?? What do you like about them? What do your kids like about them? FWIW... For language arts we're going to do Rod & Staff English and AVKO Sequential Spelling. For math we're doing Singapore.
We use a lot of the stuff at Homeschool Share for our lapbooks. A good share of the lessons incorporate more than one subject into them. For example, my dd just finished one on eagles. It had a list of vocab words--English. It had a diagram with the parts of the eagle--Science. It had a map that she had to color in for where eagles were located and what time of year---Geography and Science. I like that she can learn different subjects from one subject matter. And the visual aspect of it is great if your child is a hands on visual learner.
I am not an expert on this topic as we've not really done any yet but in my research of "how" to do it we've pretty much discovered that you can buy lapbooks to put together but really it looks like much more fun to make our own...basically it looks like you make a list of what you'd like the student to learn about a topic and then leave the student to learn those things and find a creative way to put them together in a lapbook. that probably didn't help much, sorry.
Marylyn, if you were coming here, I'd give you a crash-course in lapbooking. It's real easy. You make a bunch of "mini-books" and then glue them into a manilla folder that has been re-folded. You can add extensions if you like. You can get pre-made lapbook kits, or do your own. I had the priveldge of going to Tammy Duby's workshop (from Tobin's Lab) at CHEO. She took us through the process step-by-step. Have you seen any? If you do a web search, you will get examples and possibly instruction on how to make the min-books. Oh, I wouldn't use glue to attatch the mini-books! Tammy says spray adhesive, but I'm partial to rubber cement.
Thanks, Birbitt and Jackie. I wish I could come right over, Jackie! :love: I'll add rubber cement to the shopping list. I saw some examples online from Tbog's link, and I think Joy is going to love making them.
Well, since you won't come home..... I copied some stuff about how to make a bunch of the different min-books, and will get them mailed to you tomorrow. Hey, btw (off-topic here!) would your parents be interested in commenting on the revising of hs'ing laws here in Ohio? I'll send them the info if they are.
Thanks, Jackie! I TOLD you all to move down here with me!! But did you listen?? I don't know if Mom and Dad would be interested or not... You can call or e-mail them to ask. What laws are being revised?
Basically, they are considering revising the hs'ing laws in general. In other words, make more requirements. Exactly what, we don't know. Maybe keeping atendance records, maybe requiring testing. Who can say? This is the first time in 20 years where they felt it was "needed". We, on the other hand, feel that the laws suit us fine, and don't want tied up in any additional red tape.
