summer school

I am not a homeschooler but I do believe children should have learning activities during school breaks (especially summer) to keep them mentally sharp and learning. Each May I vow I will have my children do learning activities and each summer we don't do it.

This year I found a new idea that I thought would help us with the school activities. It's called lapbooking. We have really enjoyed and are on our second week of school. June 9-13 we did an unit on outer space. Last week (June 16-20) we were supposed to do a weather unit but we had something going on nearly every day so school got pushed aside. This week (June 23-27) we are doing an unit on the human body. We made lapbooks for the space unit and C&J had so much fun making them.

Before I explain how we made the lapbooks, let me explain how I decided on topics. I decided to use what my children learned in school over the past year for our units so we are not really learning new stuff but reviewing what they have already learned. Next week we will talk about America, and then other topics we will cover are: Australia, Native Americans, Pioneers, South America, magnets, plants and animals.

We cover one topic each week (we do school 4 days a week with a field trip on Thursdays). I choose a religious story that has to do with the topic. I also find books that have information about the topic. Tuesday is our library day. My children can choose 4 books: one must be about the topic we are discussing this week, one must be a grade-level book (to keep up their reading skills) and then the other two can be whatever they want. They write a book report about their topic book. We collect information, draw, color or cut out pictures that illustrate what we are learning, and find other information that then goes into the lapbook. We also do math review.

So, here are some pictures of our outer space lapbooks.

First, I took a file folder and folded the outer edges so they meet in the middle. Then C&J wrote the title and their names on the outer flaps.














I cut a piece of construction paper to 8x11" and used clear packing tape to tape the paper to the left side of the folder at the crease. Then I cut another piece of paper to 8x11" and taped that to the right side of the folder at the crease. This made two extra pages. We made planets out of construction paper and glued them on the black page.








The other side of the black piece of paper has the vocabulary list. The green paper has pictures the children drew of the Creation story (as told in Genesis 1 and 2).













The other side of the green paper has pictures I took at the Clark Planetarium (our field trip) of the International Space Station and a weather set like the one our local TV station uses.

The back of the folder (blue section) has pictures of the scale model of the solar system at the Planetarium.








The left flap of the book has a picture of the space shuttle and one of the children looking through a telescope with a brief explanation of why they are important.



















The other flap has pictures of C&J "visiting" the moon and Mars.






















We had a lot of fun making these lapbooks. We did something every day to add to the lapbooks so the children were excited about school time. I think this will make it easier and more motivating to do summer school because it is fun and the children have something to keep and read.