Bats and building a bat house

I don't remember exactly how we got interested in bats. We did see a lot of them on a summer vacation in Virginia and when we go to the zoo they're always a favorite. We got a lot of great photos from National Geographic for this lapobook.

Coral Reef Life

We're lucky to live near the Florida Keys so now that the boys are old enough to snorkle we got excited about learning about coral, how reefs develop, and the fish and other creatures that live there. It has been wonderful for us to spot types of coral and fish we learned about making this lapbook.

Dragons

We fell in love with Brendon Fraser's reading of Cornelia Funke's "Dragonrider" (as well as dragons' roles in other favorite stories) and that led us to looking at the mythology of dragons in different times in the world.

Sharks

We went to our local Museum of Science and Discovery to see an IMAX 3D about sharks and that led us to our next lapbook. We cut out great pictures from an old National Geographic and the boys made a couple of small mini-books about the different types of sharks and different types of shark fins. This was also the lapbook in which we decided to add a "References" note.

Our Pet Book, Fall 2006

Time to do a new folder to include all of the new characters in our zoo ...

The Life Cycle of Monarch Butterflies

Spending time in plant nurseries led us to our next lapbook on monarch butterflies. We were looking at some broccoli plants when Patrick noticed caterpillars on some flowers. The smallest ones were less than 1/4" long! We decided it would be great to take a couple of plants home and watch the caterpillars turn into butterflies : )

Our First Garden

During the prep time before Hurricane Wilma we made several trips to Home Depot. Brian saw seed packets for sale and decided he wanted to plant something. We were more focused on the storm but finally helped him plant a dozen or so squash seeds in a large rubbermaid container. And despite the storm and being hauled to Jacksonville afterward, and then transplanted twice, the squash flourished. That was the beginning of our first ever vegetable garden. Wilma had destroyed our fenced dog kennel so that area became a garden. We dug up the grass and put down good soil to transplant the squash plants into. Over the next several weeks we added sweet peas, broccoli, carrots, tomatoes and green beans. We watched every day as the plants flowered and grew taller. Some mornings the boys literally woke me up with "Let's go outside and check on the garden!" : )

And then there was Wilma...

We had finished our first folder about our pets when Hurricane Wilma decended upon us. It took us weeks to complete and again, is more of a scrapbook than an academically focused unit study, but our Hurricane Wilma scrapbook is one that Brian and Patrick go back to look at again and again.

Our first lapbook: Our Pets, Fall 2005

We did our first lapbook in the fall of 2005. I had discovered Dinah Zike's The Big Book of Books but wasn't quite sure what to do with the ideas inside it. So we started by doing a folder about our pets which kept the boys interested and introduced them to the lapbooking format.

Getting started

Hi--
We discovered lapbooking a couple of years ago and it has evolved to become the main source of structure in our eclectic homeschool. We focus on our boys' (ages 7 1/2, NT and 11, ASD) interests, help them do research, and tie it all together with a lapbook that they can go back to look at as many times as they like. I'll be posting photos of all of the lapbooks we've done as well as links to some of my favorite sites and resources.
: )
Laura