What's in the Box today?

image from Amazon.com

Well for the boy-we are reading thru Five InA Row's Neil Armstrong [book 3] and chapter two talks about the Wright brothers-which my son asked to study a mere month or so ago-so I never did have to come up with much myself...yah...I simply am following the FIAR guide, and added a few books and a DVD on them (which is great by the way) plus a few experiments to help him see the concept of flight better.  I put all the materials he needed (except the blow dryer) to do the lift experiment in Wright Brothers for Kids book.

Ladies-save those little boxes and packing things when you can-never know when you'll need them for an experiment! Since we didn't have floral foam or a potato (yes, I need to buy some) this Scentsy box came in right handy :).

I also added three more mini-booklets for the Neil Armstrong lapbook that I am using, which is available for free via Homeschool Share. This unit was put together by one of my friends (with another gal) Leslie-who always has great FIAR activities posted on her blog!

We are not doing all the stuff in there, but again-that is the beauty of being in control-you decide.  I did have to make my own copywork pages because we do not teach D'Nealian/cursive with loops for  handwriting [we use Italic] and that is what it is in.  I simply used MS Word to type out the quote in a readable print, and then added lines for the boy to write on.  Easy peasy.  I will try to download that for you all to use if you want.  I am thinking of using something other than Scribd b/cuz usually when I upload it-it gets the lines and parameters all messed up...so I will let you know when I have that figured out.

Oh, if you did not see this on my Scrap and Lapbook Blog-these little storage gems are perfect for lapbook components.  These ones are from Creative Memories, and I am not sure if they are available any longer-but there has to be something out there that is similar (these have a flap that comes down to keep the material in place and 3 holes for a binder) -I simply pre-print/cut and place the soon to be needed items in one, pull out what we'll need for the day and when he has completed them-they go into another one to await being placed into a lapbook.  All safe and clean and protected.  Look at garage sales, at art/craft stores, scrapbooking stores, etc. for something like this-it is a wonderful "must have" for any serious lapbooking family.

Those "Troublesome Trolley" blends

visit The Work of Childhood for more ideas for the workbox.

This is a simple activity to help those visual learners:



CH, SH and TH...3 sounds that throw my boy whilst he is trying to read. For whatever reason, he just forgets they are meant to be said as a blend. I have to do three different visual hints for him as he reads this...SH is obvious, as I bring my finger to my lips and say "Shhh", CH is showing my thumb hit my finger, and TH is over-stressing my tongue hitting my teeth (as he had no front teeth while we were working on the TH sounds in reading, so he ends up saying "fff" instead...so I have to over-stress the tongue hitting the teeth in order to get him to say TH...but..that is isn't enough...so I had to come up with something...this was my solution. Just used my MS Word...now I still need to print an additional blank card for the pictures to go on cuz the 10 cannot fit without squishing them. But it gives you the idea of how it works...basically, they place the picture under the sound it makes, and when done, have you or an older sibling check it to be sure it is correct. I know for my son, that all though this is WAY easy on the difficulty scale, it is giving him a bunch of visuals...so when he sees the them in a word-his mind may instantly go to this work to remind him to blend the sounds. We'll see. Anyhoo, I just store it in a Ziplock. If you'd like the file, you can leave a comment with your email addy and I will send it along (I will not publish it, but just get your e-addy and then delete it-so you don't have to worry about having your email addy out on the web).

The Word Build close-up

First we had to sort the letters (foamy type that I bought in a bulk bag) and get them back into the fishing tackle boxes I bought a few years back to store em in. We only needed enough in there to build a few words, and sentences at a time...the rest will remain in the ziplock bag for future use.
Then the child (in this case, my boy) lays out the cards with the pictures-then builds the words. These are 3 letter ones, but I will make ones with 4-6 letters for him to build. I am finding that he is missing some of the sounds at times, so this will be a great visual, tactile and auditorial work for him. He enjoyed it.





I instructed him on how to do it (its been a long time since he has done this and didn't remember it), how to sound out and place letters below. Hew was also informed, that before he puts the stuff away, he needs to find me to check his work. This is a standard rule for this project (as I will load the workboxes with them several times per month)-he should be able to do them alone now, unless he doesn't know what the picture is suppose to be...until check time. This is a great work for 4-up, esp. if your child is struggling with the spelling/reading. This should not take more than 15 mins., yet cements the process easily and meets most learning styles.