Lapbooks and Journal alternatives

Journals are a pretty big deal in our public school system. Every day, for every grade, my boys were supposed to journal. Only problem was? Neither ever actually WROTE much down! I wonder how many countless hours were wasted, 10 minutes at a time, day after day, as my children stared off into space?

When I began homeschooling them, I tried to follow the journal routine. Many, many days of frustration on all of our parts as I attempted to force them to record something trivial about their lives. Finally, I stepped back and realized that the process of journalling is supposed to be relaxing. I also realized that the main point of writing in a daily journal for public school was about sentence formation, imagination, and penmanship. NONE of which were being accomplished by my children in their forced one-sentence pages!

I heard about "lapbooks" from a very organized mother in our homeschooling group. She directed me towards many online sites where you can print out EVERYthing you need, right down to the smallest details. I printed out a few pieces, here and there, and then realized that my ink on my printer is VERY expensive and that all of those color pages were sucking it dry!

Enter the scrapbooking supplies!! I used to scrapbook a LOT when the boys were little. Sadly, the joy of it was lost somewhere along the time that blogging came into my life. One can only have so many outlets, you know? For homeschooling, though? The extra scrapbooking supplies have been a lifesaver! All of the colored paper, stickers and cutting supplies are PERFECT for the lapbooks! I lugged it all out and began laying out designs for the boys to fill in. Basically, I ask questions, leave space for artwork and graphs, and direct the boys in learning certain aspects about the topics they're studying. For Justin, who abhors anything with the word "art" attached to it, asking him to design a cover for his Energy lapbook wasn't "art". It was just another step in the project. Submarines and Airplanes by Justin

For Evan, who needs extra help on reading and writing but loves to draw, the lapbooks offer variety and a break from something that he doesn't feel he is very good at (writing/spelling).

Another way I've found to encourage Evan and Corinne's imagination, spelling, and writing skills is to offer them small booklets to fill in. Using colored pencils and his own creativity, Evan has written about 4 different short books! He can do one page a day or 4, there is no limit or requirement needed. Arachnid Wars by Evan

Even Corinne has benefited from making these booklets and is currently writing a fantastic story entitled "Princess Wars." (Can you tell she's a girly girl who has older brothers?)

Check Cubed

What a nice day. Really! A really nice, easy-going, much-accomplished day.

Everyone's lists completed from start to finish?
No crying or complaining about the validity of the work assigned?
3 children actually learned something NEW and held the material from the day before?
Quality of work of all 3 was outstanding?

Check! Check! Check! CHECK!

Between the above and the fact that my kids fell asleep watching Finding Nemo to the sound of the rain on the rooftop, tonight ended on quite a lovely note.

I'm all geared up for tomorrow, when Justin learns that Daddy will be doing the P.E. training class (Navy style) again. I do believe he thought it would be a one-time deal. Heh. I need to remember this happy place of peace when he's fighting the work-out again. (Yesterday was a day I just cannot retell. It's too painful to recount my son bucking the physical work we were asking him to do!)

Crossing my fingers for another Good Day on Friday...

A slow morning...

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

How many times do I say "Evan" ? How many times do I say "Keep working!" or "Focus!" ??

First person to answer correctly gets the privilege of coming over and being a teacher for a day! You lucky, lucky person!

Note to self:

Be prepared for your monthly week of communing with the universe and all its wondrous glory. Because having your period and NOT having the school week planned out isn't the best combination. Maybe "winging it" isn't a good choice when your hormones are on a trampoline and the mortgage is due.

Just a thought.

Chilly fingers are hard to type with.

Brrr!!! We were supposed to go to a local petting zoo and playground for our weekly homeschooling meetup, but it is REALLY cold, and we are REALLY tired. So instead? We are doing our work in jammies drinking coffee and hot chocolate. After we do our schoolwork, there are peanut butter cookies begging to be baked by 3 little kids.

Corinne and I have already spent an hour doing sweet watercolors. Fall scenes, ballerinas, dragons, everything. Very random and very tiny, cute pictures. Rediscovering my love of painting and drawing has been a big plus for me. And it's been showing the kids that EVERYONE does art. That's a big deal for the boys. They aren't as imaginative when it comes to arts and crafts as I'd like, and I think being able to just paint or draw SOMEthing helps you in other areas. I.e. I have a 10 year old boy whining behind me that he caaaaan't just "write" a paragraph about dolphins without having specific instructions!

Coffee. More. Coffee.

Ahhhhh....

A few lessons learned

Lesson 1: If Mommy hurts her neck doing something that was meant to be helpful but ends up being not a brilliant idea (like, say, she does a backwards somersault for Cub Scouts even though she's 33....), it's ok to skip the math pages that Evan doesn't understand. It's ok to have him read 10 books to Corinne instead, especially since his reading skills need lots of encouragement. It's ok to cop out of one or two subjects when the teacher (ME!) is screaming in pain. We can make it up later on (most of the work got bumped back a day and I've just reassigned the missed work to this week, instead).

Lesson 2: Poker is great for number recognition, money skills, and encourages critical thinking. Also, Justin will be in good form for his college dorm days since he kicked my ASS on Thursday!

Lesson 3: They ARE learning. A LOT. A lot, a lot. No less than they would in public school. The material they are working on may be simultaneously on higher levels AND lower levels than public schools offer, but they are on THEIR levels. My kids are learning what they don't understand yet, and we're focusing on what they need to improve upon. And it's being done without hours and hours of time at p.s. and then hours and hours of exhausted arguments over homework. Homeschooling IS working for my family. I can see this and it's extremely encouraging.

Lesson 4: Sometimes Mommy is too ambitious. Sometimes I need to step away from the curriculum and exciting projects and remember each child's learning style and speed and just let them absorb it a little more slowly. Sometimes a 7 year old just needs to run laps around the house when printing out ANOTHER tricky word is just too overwhelming...

Lesson 5: My kids are so much happier. SO much happier... It's kind of sad, actually, to think of all of the years that we forced our square-pegged Justin into the circle-shaped schools. It just wasn't a good fit and his edges are still a bit banged up from it. With a little bit of work, we can sharpen them up again. I like having a square-pegged boy.

Lesson 6: I love these art sites for kids!

Some pics. Some captions. Enjoy.

Baking brownies in the afternoon, just because we can! My kids are excellent egg-crackers and I've been making a conscious effort to have them read the boxes or cook books as we bake. Corinne and Evan are already grasping the whole "fraction thingy" much earlier than I expected!
Not brownies, but one of the biggest perks of homeschooling: home-baked breakfasts without the rush to get it down the hatch and get out the door. Today we made baked French toast and it was HEAVENLY to eat it with my children at 9:00 am. It baked while Evan did spelling. If that's not a perfect way to start a school day, then I don't know what is!
Best $1 I ever spent at a clothing/toy sale is this floor desk. Evan does 90% of his work here...
Her handwriting is going to quickly surpass Evan's. I'm keeping that fact on the down-low, though... Can't be beat by a PRESCHOOLER, you know!

Guitar Hero TOTALLY counts as music appreciation. Ok, ok... I know. I'm working on something a little more educational. But, for now? This will have to suffice.
I dug out my good old Discovery Toys to find other preschool stuff for Corinne to occupy herself with while I'm working with the boys. She is adoring the shape sorter, even though most of these foam pieces have cat teeth marks on them...

Both of the boys are working on lap books right now and I'll update more about that once they're finished. I'm finding that they are a great stand-in for the traditional book reports or class projects that children would normally work on in a public school classroom. Plus, they're perfect to use as a marker for that question every homeschooler hears: "What did you learn this year?"