We’re here!  Holidays… for real!  But, much to the kids’ chagrine, it’s not going to be all fun and games.  No way.

I prepared long and hard so that we would have interesting things to do, that made for fun, clever ways to achieve some academic outcomes without feeling like we’re actually achieving academic outcomes.  Lapbooking.  It’s a joy.  Despite this being but our first very day at it… a joy!
Like I said… I worked long and hard.  I put together pages upon pages of resource material so that we could thoroughly cover, to first and fourth/fifth grade proportions, Mayan Civilization and Oceans.  Did I say long and hard?  So, I have this organized box full of the kids stuff- prepared items to cut out/colour/fill-in/glue/whatever to add to their lapbooks.

I also have a folder of wonderful activities outlining various aspects of these larger topics.  Things to do.  Ideas for lessons. Terrific information to keep me in a flow of learning… so that I wouldn’t be staring at my shoes, wondering what to do next.

I think it’s on my dining room table.  2500 miles away.  Let’s just say, it looks like I’m gonna get to know my shoes.

I have spent the past many, many days preparing for two lapbooking units for my two boys.  This is my first real effort in creating study units.  We are going to be gone for a month and I figured what better- and less cumbersome- way to take on these units than through lapbooking.

In my quest for information I have found some amazing stuff.  People are doing great things in lapbook and thankfully recording their efforts in the form of blogs and flickr.  Which I too shall do so as to assist others new to lapbooking in the process… because, surely, if I can do it… anyone can.

There are printing pages for animals…. There are free map pages, outlined maps specifically, also for printing…. and places to spruce up the lapbook itself with all kinds of creative little book ideas of all shapes, sizes and complexity!

The tough part for me was finding free stuff.  Sure I could go and drop $20 bucks a pop on ideas and templates, but really, people, it’s all out there free for the searching!!  Fellow homeschoolers as well as other organizations and institutions, education advocates all, are tremendously generous in what they provide.

We are taking Mayan Civilazation and Oceans on the road with us.  We are going to our beach shack- truly a shack, I assure you- in the Yucatan… so these are particularly relevant to our experience there. We may also do up smaller versions on the impending federal elections- Canada and U.S.
We’ll catch up with B.C. Explorers when we get back.