Tag: history

Notebooking the Lapbook Way

Tracy

We’re doing a lot of notebooking this year. I love so much about lapbooking, but in the end, the space it takes was a real deal-killer this year. I am all about concise, confined homeschool. Besides, there’s the fact that my kids still pull out their notebooks from 2 years ago to show people, while the lapbooks stay untouched on the shelf. So, back to notebooking it is.

But I am trying to keep the spirit of lapbooking in mind. We are using, in a sense, a notebooking-hybrid.

Our notebooking pages this year are filled with pockets and mini-books, flaps and folds.

Notebooking the Lapbook Way

Notebooking the Lapbook Way

Some of our creativity is out of the pure of joy of creating, while some of it is born of necessity. For instance, our Story of the World activities include a lot of puppets and finger puppets. The kids love these and always opt to do the puppet-project if there is one. Storing all of those pieces takes a little creativity.

Notebooking the Lapbook Way

A super fun and effective way to “notebook” our finger puppets is to trace the kids hands, have them decorate their hand, then I cut the “finger” lines with an exacto, and we slip the puppets over the paper fingers. Too cute!

Notebooking the Lapbook Way

For us, it makes our memories easier to take with us and easier to share with others. (Plus, it helps me keep all the parts and pieces in one place.)

Note: Many of our lapbooking/notebooking elements are courtesy of the free downloads from Dynamic2Moms website. Check out their vast collection of resources for history.

Illuminated Letters and Calligraphy

Tracy2 Comments on Illuminated Letters and Calligraphy

We’ve been learning about the fall of the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Islamic Empire, and some church history over the last few weeks. St. Patrick, St. Valentine, and St. Augustine are a few of the names we’ve read about. And for art, we’ve explored the printed books the monks would work on.

We read Caedmon’s Song, a beautiful book about a shepherd who became a monk and wrote songs. Then the kids colored an illuminated letter. But I thought it might be more fun to go a step further.

We cut out our illuminated letter, glued it to some brown card stock, and experimented with calligraphy markers. I did help them with the actual writing, holding their little hands as they wrote so that they could keep the right angle. But to see their eyes light up as they saw the beautiful letters was worth a little intervention.

Child calligraphy project

child calligraphy project

Then we hole-punched the pictures and threaded some twine for hangers. It was a fun way to explore the work the monks would do and the perfect craft as we head into the Thanksgiving season.