The Courage of Sarah Noble - lapbook

Ever since the Thanksgiving lapbook Fiona has been BEGGGGGGING to make another lapbook.  In our history program they have optional reading lists including historical fiction and informative books to delve deeper into the topics.  One of the stories was a short chapter book, The Courage of Sarah Noble, by Alice Delgliesh (abbrev. as S.N. from now on).  I found a free lapbook at homeschool share for the story and so decided that would be our next lapbook.

Then in my homeschool group I heard from quite a few people that they also loved lapbooking so I made an event to make our own lapbooks to trade!  I put in soooooo many hours on the lapbook, making up 10 of my own booklets, redesigning/remaking 2 booklets and then using 4 of the booklets from the S.N lapbook I had found online, and reusing 1 element from the Thanksgiving lapbook.  We ended up with a huge 2.5 folder lapbook for this short (an adult could read it in well under an hour) chapter book, LOL.

I have never made up a lapbook booklet before, but had a ton of fun doing this!

So here is the huge lapbook!  At the end I will post links to download the lapbook and I will also post a link of my daughter doing a video showing off her lapbook....... If you read this post and liked it please post a comment!  If you don't then tell me why!

Like I said we did 2.5 folders for this book, but 2 folders would have been plenty.  Here is how you connect the folders....

There are two covers, Fiona decided which one went where.  One is a photocopy of the books cover, the other is a random free coloring page I found on Google.... I will try to find who made it to give proper credit.

Onto the inside.....

I made the Charades game, The middle book (which isn't done yet, it will be a photo album of Fiona making the lapbook and cooking).  I used pictures from the actual book for the middle booklet and the alphabetizing book.  I was going to use a different picture for the colonial cooking pocket but I had already printed out the other lapbook so just went with it.  I just googled for recipe cards and found one  liked.  The top right booklet also came from the premade lapbook, and I used it cause it was already printed but I put my own spin on it asking Fiona to in her own words say what the book was about and then I had her write that one sentence down.

The Charades cards are super bulky and heavy once laminated and no matter where I put them in the book they kept falling out, so i made a holder for them and its all better now :)

First time I ever really have Fiona alphabetize anything, and I give her these names, I am so mean... But she got it with very little help!

Under the green flap there are three booklets here in the middle were all taken from the premade lapbook.

Fiona wrote in the matchbooks the names of the animals and trees Sarah talks about.

This says that the book won the Newberry award, don't know why she wrote it upsides down....

Self explanatory, I found the pictures just from google (yes I love google image search).

The pocket is from the homeschool share lapbook.  Not what I was planning on using, however I had printed out the entire lapbook, so figured I would just use the pieces I could instead of printing out new.

Fiona's one sentence saying what the entire story was about.  I think her handwriting is really good! Especially for writing on blank paper :)

I drew the quilt that is on the red tab, Fiona colored it in obviously.  I think you could get away with only using two folders.  If you wanted to you could put the quilt and the alphabetized names in the middle with the big photo album booklet and then the award on the lower left hand, the forest animals on the yellow flap that has nothing (the opposite side of the charades flap has nothing) and the lifestyles of the woodland Indians on the red flap where the quilt is.

Here are the recipes we have tried from the colonial time period!  We definitely do NOT recommend the mush.  Supposedly others have made it and liked it, so if you want to try it more power to you.

This is the layout of the second folder.

More from google images... I'll post links when I find them again.

This is from the homeschool share lapbook, these are some of the things that really scared Sarah, Fiona went through and decided which she thought were scary and how scary they were.

This is again the same color wheel we used for the Thanksgiving lapbook from the Goody O'Grumpity lapbook on homeschool share. Did you know brown and pink are considered warm colors?  I didn't know until I checked wikipedia :)  So with that said EVERY color mentioned in the book is a warm color!

If you can't read it here Fiona said (and I wrote down) what she remembered Sarah being afraid of, and what made Sarah feel better.  Then she also listed her own fears and thing that made her feel better.

This was a coloring page I found, its rather confusing being as summer and spring could be switched. The tree in spring should be blooming as well as having the daffodils.  But anywho we decided to go with the flowers for spring and the sun for summer.

I drew the picture of the girl praying!  That wasn't a google find!  I am rather proud of my picture :)

These are all the vocabulary words we found in the book, Fiona knew a fair number of the words without me needing to give a description.  Being as her reading isn't that advanced, and writing out all that with definitions would take her forever I just added the 3x5 card to show that it will easily fit in the pocket for other parents using this with older children, so you don't have to make pages, just use 3x5 cards.

So that is the whole lapbook!  We also did several recipes, and used popsicle sticks to build a log cabin... here are some of our action shots from the activities.... 

She made the corn mush *completely* on her own (i just read the directions)

She was super excited to get to turn on the burner by herself, I actually had to teach her how to do it O,o Its crazy how something so basic you have to teach!

And here you have your mush......

Making Colonial Carrot and Pecan cake for Easter.....

BEST CARROT CAKE EVER!!!!!

I will admit to cheating a little for the carrot cake and changed the recipe a bit.

I looked at several other recipes and found that people said the baking powder gave it a weird taste and being as there is no acid to activate it, its useless, so I added more baking soda and skipped the baking powder.  I also added some molasses (to make my own brown sugar), 1 cup of shredded coconut, some cloves and i grated some nutmeg in as well.... For the frosting I reduced the amount of sugar and added a splash of milk to help everything actually mix...  

This is seriously the best carrot cake I have ever eaten.  We made it for Easter and then again the next week!

Here is the (adjusted) recipe.....

Ingredients

4 eggs

1 1/4 cup veg oil

2 cups white sugar (or half white half brown if you buy brown sugar)

molasses to make light brown sugar (1 Tbsp maybe??? i dont measure it)

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups all purpose flour

3 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp ground cinnamon

ground cloves (maybe 1 tsp)

nutmeg (maybe 1/2 tsp)

3 cups grated carrots (grate on the normal cheese one otherwise the cake can be to watery)

1 cup shredded coconut (can be omitted, you can't really taste it, but helps with water and i like the texture it gives)

1 cup chopped pecans

Frosting

1/2 cup butter (softened)

8 oz cream cheese (softened)

3 cups confectioners sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract (I probably used closer to 1 Tbsp)

splash of milk

pecans to put on top

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 x 13 pan

• In a large bowl beat the eggs together, add oil, white sugar, molasses and vanilla.  Mix well.

• Mix in flour, baking soda, salt, and spices.  Finally mix in carrots, coconut and pecans.  Pour into prepared pan.

• Bake in preheated oven for 45-50 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Let cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan

• For the frosting combine butter, cream cheese, sugar and vanilla into a bowl and beat until mixture is smooth and creamy (if doing this by hand you will probably need to add in a splash of milk, no more then 2 Tbsp).  Frost cake and decorate with remaining pecans

Enjoy!!!!

The link to Fiona going over her lapbook is here;  Fiona's video

I will upload the lapbook pieces so they can be downloaded once I have everything in a nice file.

And, now to go prep for the next lapbook..... 

Planning

I said in my last post what we are doing for the rest of this year, so this post will be my plans for the future....

First off we will be doing school year-round.  Works easier that way.  We will be taking off plenty of days, either because one of us don't feel good, or its to nice to be in the house or really any reason.... With doing year-round we will make up the time no problem.

So now that we have found some curriculum's we like we will be continuing on with them.....

Math

We will be continuing on with Math-U-See.  I already have the Beta teachers book and dvd given to me as a RAK (random act of kindness) through the homeschooling penpals and swaps group that I am an admin of.  So all i need to get is the student pages!

Reading

We will also be continuing our current reading program.  I need to get All About Reading - level 2.  I just need the readers and the instructors book, I have been making up my own activities for Fiona all year anyways.  The ones in the book are OK, but we have several that work wonders for us, and I don't see a reason to mess with something that works!

History

We will be beginning The Story of the World - vol 1 - Ancient Times.  I have actually owned this history program for almost 3 years now!  I found out about it and loved it immediately and then I saw a full set at a garage sale (including the text book, instruction guide, student workbook, test book and cds) for super cheap and bought it without a second thought!

There are so many activities to go along with this history course, I am in different fb groups for the course as well as already having lapbooks downloaded for it.  There are also people who post links for music and art appreciation as well as additional projects to go along with the lessons.... I am really looking forwards to our history lessons.  They are written as a story, not really a text book :)

Science

I THINK I know what science we will be doing.... but we haven't even gotten the science book 1 of the series yet, so I don't know for sure.  But I am hoping I love Science in the Beginning and that Science in Ancient Times will be our science for next year.

If we use the Science in Ancient Times next year it will go right along with our history program and so we will combine the two along with some music, and art to become a great big unit study,  Fiona LOVES doing unit studies, and with all the experiments, projects, arts and crafts projects and lapbooks I think Fiona will be waking me up early so we can get to our schooling for the day!

Geography

We are going to cover all the states between whenever we finish with Adventures in America history and then over the summer!  It might take longer then just 3-4 months and if it does that is fine.  I am planning on doing a lapbook of the states, and we will be joining postcard events trying to get a card from every state.  We also will be making at least one "signature" recipe from each state using "The United States Cookbook". After that we will just be looking up where things are taking place in our history book, and when we go to different cultural festivals throughout the year we will look up that country.

Spelling

We will be doing All About Spelling 1 this year.  Again I already own the program!  I got it used, so we are set and ready to begin whenever she starts AAR - 2.  According to the websight it is best to begin the spelling lessons a year or two after reading...

Extras

Sewing - IDK when we will begin, however I plan on teaching Fiona how to sew between now and a year from now :)  A long window of time I know, but I need to focus on the main lessons, and everything else before I add in sewing.

Cooking - I already have Fiona help me occasionally.  I plan on letting her come into the kitchen more often to help!  She loves working in the kitchen with me.  We will be doing a lot of cooking with our study of the states!

Art - I need to be more proactive in adding art into our curriculum.... I will work on that this year. We do do ATCs though and we will continue to do so.  And in doing ATCs we often experiment with new ways of making art.  We just need to add in more art appreciation.  The critical thinking books I have (Language Lessons for Little Ones) will often have a painting and ask questions about that painting.  I might try to find more things like that.

Music - again it needs to be added in, I am thinking of getting a couple Irish tin whistles and beginning books and just going from there.  Again I know there are music appreciation programs out there and we might look into adding them in....

Second Language - We want to add this in, but I haven't decided what to do yet.  I don't know if a forgein language will be added next year, if it is it probably will not be before December.

So I think that about covers everything.  I am so blessed that I can homeschool my daughter and love that I am on this journey with her!

Our Curriculum (and its many changes) 2014-2015

So I said in my last post that we have scrapped just about all our curriculum for the year and started new in January!   So the question is now what were we doing and what are we doing now and why....

OK so seriously except for history/social studies we have changed up EVERYTHING!

Math 

We had been using Math Lessons for a Living Education.  I bought it because it uses a story to teach math.  Fiona loves stories so I thought it would be a great fit.  Well she did enjoy the stories, but it wasn't the best fit for her. Here she is doing stuff that was super easy for her and well, she doesn't look the happiest (and I SEARCHED for the happiest looking pictures I could find of her doing her math work).

After much research I decided on Math-U-See... but the high price for the curriculum was rather scary, especially as this is the second math curriculum for the year.  Then a friend came to the rescue and offered to loan me the instruction manual and the dvd for Alpha until August when she needs it for her next child!  So we still needed to by the student pages and the blocks, but didn't need everything.  I LOVE math-u-see so far!  We have only been working with it for 2 months and Fiona is doing lesson 14 today.  It took us a week on lesson 1 being as her old book only had us doing numbers up to 20 and in lesson one you learn all numbers up to 999 in Alpha! Suddenly she can build, read, write and say all her numbers from 0-999!!!  (With the sometimes exceptions of 13 and 30.... she has trouble remembering those names and also has trouble saying the "th" sound so that doesn't help.)

These pictures show a much happier Fiona doing much harder work! And better yet the words "I LOVE math" are heard quite often in this house!  Its amazing.

You can see a video of her singing the multiples of 2 here...... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBQDSh6aQ-E&feature=youtu.be

Reading

For teaching the letters and the letter sounds I SERIOUSLY recommend "Letter Factory" by Leap Frog.  Really I didn't have to teach a single letter sound.  She learned and remembered all her letters and sounds from watching this video!!!!

But then comes the next step, using those sounds to read.  We have tried MANY different curriculum's for reading.  She HATED "Teach your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" and "Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading".  She did not like the McGruffy readers, and the Bob books didn't help her learn to read either.  I think now that Hooked on Phonics could have worked but she just wasn't ready for the reading one when we tried.  We had the letters one but she knew all her letters and so that one wasn't needed at all, and when I then tried to move on to the first  kindergarten reading set with her at age 4 she just wouldn't remember a word from one second to the next!  Being as we have moved 3-4 times since I last tried it I forgot that I even had part one of kindergarten and when i did find it I was missing some of the components. ABCmouse wasn't a good fit because there was so much extra that the teaching went to the way side.  She found out that she could answer a question again and again until she randomly hit the correct answer and she would do that to get back to playing with her hamster or room or fish tank.  Reading Eggs is a much better program but after having ABCmouse for several months she didn't like it because it was to boring and repetitive (would probably have been wonderful if we didn't do ABCmouse first).  Teach Your Monster to Read is a great free game that she occasionally plays...  But none of this was working.

I didn't want her to hate reading so I decided to just take a break from ALL reading lessons for several months.  We took probably 5 months off, then I noticed her being super interested in her books again, and actually sounding out words.  I had borrowed a Dick and Jane reader from the library just to see what they were like (mind numbing is the answer), however Fiona really liked them!  And being as each story has about 4 words by the end of the story she was saying some of the words!!!   I then found Progressive Phonics online and she read through several  stories the first day!  Wonderful!!!

I had part of what was needed for All About Reading - level 1 that I got second hand, but there wasn't money to buy the rest of what I needed for a while.  So I continued working with Dick and Jane books from the library and free Progressive Phonics readers until I was able to purchase the rest of the All About Reading curriculum that I wanted to use.

I began at the beginning BECAUSE it is easy for her.  She has had enough struggling with reading already.  She is speeding through her lessons and gaining confidence because she is able to learn the new words without as much difficulty.  She has now completely finished the first of the three "readers" that come with the curriculum.  That is 14 stories that she can read with ease!

Science

I had planned on beginning a science program in Sept. but we never got around to buying one.  I just found books and videos for science for the first half of the year.  But I wanted it to be more structured then that so I got Exploring Science... I'm not sure if I should have, I did the entire first unit in one day because the information was so basic.  However I already had the companion lab book and it was only $15.50 for the digital download of the instruction manual and the student pages. So even if she speeds through the entire curriculum in just 2-3 months its worth it I think to make sure we cover the very basics.  Then I will get the next science curriculum from them.  I am also thinking of getting the Sassafrass books, lab books, and lapbooks stuff for our summer science curriculum.  I think Fiona will love doing those

I began this post over a month ago, and have decided that the science is not worth bothering with.  It is so very basic that I spend hours scouring youtube for videos showing what we are learning in science so that she gets some real information.

I am planning on buying a new science book tonight!  I am getting Science in the Beginning.  It looks really good, I have been able to read the first 3 lessons online and I like what I see!  Also book two of this series will be a companion for next years history starting at lesson 20 for history.  So If I get the book and start now, being as we will school during the summer things should fall perfect for starting the next book in October or November or whenever lesson 20 will fall.

History/ Social Studies

This is the ONE school topic where we are still doing what we began with, lol.  We are doing Adventures in America (which is from the same people I got the science I don't like.... they specialize in science so I got it because I like the history program, again, maybe if I had gotten the older kids book for science :/ ).  It is VERY basic, but she doesn't need anything more at this point.  I wouldn't recommend this program for anyone above kindergarten. We do a LOT of videos to go along with our history lessons, but its more because Fiona loves the history videos and because with the videos I can show her period clothing and stuff.  We aren't doing the state study with the history like in the program... I think we will do the states after we are done with the history of the country as a whole.  Among the youtube videos are every episode of Liberties Kids (or you can get the dvd from Amazon with all the episodes for $5).  Fiona really likes watching these history cartoons :)

Bible

We are still doing the same for the Bible, but it needs to change.  The children's Bible I bought for Fiona is really a baby's Bible. She is beyond ready for more in-depth Bible stories.... but I'm not sure which children's Bible to go to next (and I KNOW we had a precious moments Bible story book.... and I also know we will find it like 2 days after I order a new Bible story book for her).  Same with her devotionals.  They are cute, but to babyish.  I think I know which book I'm getting next for that.....

So that is most of the curriculum!  There are other random things I add in from time to time like;
Language Lessons for Little Ones which I use for critical thinking, and art and poetry appreciation..... We also do tons of ATCs (artist trading cards) for art, and I print out step-by-step directions for how to draw stuff.  Then there is the ton of OTC (Oriental trading company) crafts that I order for the co-op....  And there is always cooking and cleaning that needs to be done, errr I mean home ecc ;)

I keep meaning to add music in, but we just never really get it in each week.  I mean there is music playing all the time and between her father and I we play stuff from the 50's - present time (well more like up till 5-10 years ago, but close enough), as well as Celtic and ren faire music.  When she wants to dance ballet I put on classical music.  And when we are going to a cultural festival or she just shows interest in another culture (like ancient Egypt, because MUMMIES!!!) I will play that cultures music for her.... I think that's ok for kinder music class :D