In the Hands of A Child Ecosystems Project Pack

The Ecosystems Project Pack from In The Hands of A Child is a great way to teach upper elementary,  junior high and high school students about how nature and the natural world works together. The suggested grade levels are 5-10.

Topics taught in Ecosystems include:

• Ecosystem cycles
• Energy cucle
• Carbon Cycle
• Nitrogen Cycle
• Oxygen Cycle
• Nitrogen Cycle
• Water Cycle
• Disturbance Cycle
• The Energy cycle
• The effects of disturbances of these cycles
• Food chains and webs
• Trophic Levels
• Omnivores
• Ecosystem Management
• Biomes
• Related Vocabulary

There are mini books for each of these topics which students write in after reading the corresponding section to show what they learned and know.

Wheel minibook

Clipboard minibook

There is also a bonus hands-on activity of creating a creating an ecosystem included in the project pack.  (There isn't a mini book for this activity).

The project pack includes:

• Text Study guide
• Vocabulary and Definition list
• Templates for all the minibooks
• Directions for how each minibook works and information to writein each
• Planning Guide with suggestions of what text to read, vocabulary words, and minibooks to complete each day
• List of related books and websites
• Directions for how to use the Project Pack as well as putting together the lapbook
• Full Color pictures of a completed lapbook

This Ecosytem Project Pack is laid out to be completed in 8 days, but that number could easily be changed by adjusting how many sections were studied each day.

My Thoughts


We found this to be a great way to learn about ecosytems. It is very complete and detailed, but doesn't get bogged down or boring. The text is concise and interesting. I really appreciate how the topic and vocabulary words are divided up; the amount of material to read and write about in the minibooks for each day is just right. Each days assigned reading and number of mini books to fill in is about equal so that is a great help is scheduling the amount of time it should take each day. The bonus activity of creating your own ecosystem is a fantastic way to make many of the concepts taught concrete. This was something my son was not able to complete at this time as all the components were not available at this time. I also appreciate having the list of related books and websites handy if my child wants to learn more after reading the study guide.

One of the features I thought was really cleaver was a side bar featuring a summary of the story "The Little Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly".  In the story the lady swallows many different creatures which parents and older children will recognize are part of a food chain or ecosytem. This example is then used to show how the parts of an an aquatic ecosytem work together to complete a circle. What a great way to use something students are already familiar with to illustrate a new concept!

I like having the pictures of completed minibooks included in the project pack as it is helpful in the event that I don't understand from the written directions how a minibook is supposed to go together.

Completed Lapbook

Completed Lapbook

This was at a great level for my middle school aged son, I would probably add additional reading or research for the high school level.







Disclaimer: ( I received a free digital copy of this Project pack for the purpose of this review. I have not been compensated in any other way. All thoughts are my own. I was not required to right a positive review. Photos are also my own.)

Where Does the Time Go?

I realized tonight it has been over a month since I last wrote. I had no idea it had been that long. My how time flies.

Briefly (and the best I can remember) these are some of the things we have been up to.

In both November and December we went to the Homeschool class at our library. November was all about the election process. The children had the opportunity to make a button to wear proclaiming they are future voters, they made a lapbook and even had the opportunity to vote in a election for best dessert. Th elibrarian had chosen the two candidates; cookies and brownies earlier. The children were then given the opportunity to decide which one they wanted to campaign for. Then in small groups they had to come up with several reasons to vote for their candidate and share them with the whole group. As a special treat the children were given a brownie or cookie snack.

 
Decembers' theme was optical illusions. After a brief discussion defining optical illusions the children experimented with several illusions at various stations. Among the projects they experienced were making a flip book, arrows with the ends pointing the opposite direction to prove the center part is the same length, taking to similar pictures, cutting them into strips and reassembling them by interspersing the strips with each other. Then by tilting is sideways they would only see one picture at a time.


At home in December we  kept up or regular schedule for several weeks, then spent more time on Christmas themed activities. One of these was completing the Christmas Around the World lapbook. This project pack had a lot of information and activities in it, but we also read several books along with it. These are pictures of the completed lapbook.
 

I discovered several Little House on The Prairie Christmas Anthologies at our library so we enjoyed stories from them for a read aloud throughout the month.

December was also very busy with music. Both children had the opportunity to play Christmas piano music in public settings on several occasions throughout the month.  They each played several pieces as prelude music for our church's children's Christmas program. Daughter also had the honor and privilege of accompanying the children when they sang "Away in a Manger" during the program. Even though I am biased, I do have to say she did a good job.

Both of the children decorated these mini gingerbread houses from a kit. After I made the icing Daughter put the houses together herself before decorating them. She was generous and let her brother decorate two of them.

I guess that is about all the news from our house for this month. See you in 2013.

Hands of a Child Christmas Giveaway

For a few more days In the Hands of a Child is hosting their first Sprint of Christmas giveaway!!

So what does this mean?

If you help publicize this event, in various types of social media and leave a comment on their blog about what you did on, you are entered into their giveaway for $100 worth of their lapbooks and notebook sets. You even get to choose which ones you would like!

My children and I really enjoy the Hands of a Child lapbook project packs. Right now we are using their Christmas Around the World set. It is an interesting look at several Christmas customs from 8 different countries around the world.

We have completed a number of lapbooks but some of my children's other have been Multiplication Pizza Party, Operation English Grammar, Exploring Nearby Space and American Girls. It seems we always have at least one or two lapboks in progress. We use them to complement a topic already being studied, to explore an interest, briefly study a topic I feel in important at the time or just for fun.  I have plans for several more in the new year as well.

If you're interested in lapbooks, check out In the Hands of a Child.

What Have We Been Up To?

It has been a LONG time since I wrote anything here. We haven't been overly busy, but I just haven't been motivated to write. Since I finally put the pictures from my phone on the computer, I thought I would share those along with some of the highlights since we started school in early August.

We usually start the first week of August, but it takes some time to get into the swing of things after summer, so we usually go a little slower. Last year I tried something different,  instead of diving into each subject right away or even just a couple, we spent a week reviewing one topic or subject. This year we only had two theme weeks, one of which we spent learning about the Olympics, London, and England as those were in the news.

These are lapbooks about Buckingham Palace and the Royal family. While they were designed by In The Hands of a Child, they are only available to subscribers of Schoolhouse Teachers.

These are the Olympics lapbooks. They are a compilation of mini books from different sources. Some of them are from a set I bought, others I found for free online.

Another of our topics this year was geography. Geography seems to be something we don't get to on a regular basis during the rest of our year, so I wanted to get some basics in. We examined the differences between globes and maps, types of maps, map features, and map reading.  I wanted to keep things interesting so we used some library books, read and looked at websites, played some geography and map games, solved geography related mysteries, and made a scale drawing of our property. A couple of the books we used were Great Map Mysteries, Great Map Games, and Comic Strip Map Skills. We also read Around the World in 80 days by Jules Verne.

We have also been able to attend the monthly homeschool class at our library again this year. The topics this year have been drawing with perspective and personal finance.

We also had a field trip to the local history museum continues for their monthly homeschool event. The theme in September was Olympics.

We have also had fun playing this game which I one this fall. I submitted a made up word and definition when OUT OF THE BOX was having a contest and I won. This is an expansion pack to go with the original game. We don't have the full game so we have just made up our own way of playing. It has been a lot of fun to make up our own wacky words to match definitions.

Piano lessons have also continued throughout the summer and this fall. A couple weeks ago daughter had the privilege of playing in the competition at the local teachers music conference. She did a good job and even exceeded her expectations by receiving a score of 1. Now she is eligible to play at the teachers' state conference next month. 

 

So here are just a few highlights of the last few months.

Why Is A Super Membership Super?

 You may already be familiar with In the Hands Of A Child, a company which produces lapbook curriculum sets and notebooking pages.  But did you know they offer a special Membership program called Super Membership?

A Super Membership is a paid subscription type service in which a user receives 2 complete lapbook curricula in ebook format each month. These two lapbooks feature the same topic or general theme, but for different grade levels. Usually there is one for early elementary and another for upper elementary or junior high ages. They are available for download the middle of each month in a special members only section of the website where they remain available for two months from the time they were posted when they are replaced by new ones. After they are removed from the Super Member area, these lapbooks will be available for purchase sometime in the future. So Super Members essentially get a sneak peak at new project packs.

Another perk of a Super Membership are the Unit Extenders, which are also ebook format available for download. These are collections are additional activities which correlate with other lapbook which Hands of a Child has previously published.

What Do I Love about the Super Membership?

• Knowing I have at least one complete study each month that requires very little prep work on my part. Even though the mini books need to be cut, that is a much simpler task than preparing my own study.
• Having lapbooks written on two levels which cover a similar enough topic than I could use both of them at the same time with my children. I could check out books on the same topic at the library, have discussions, and do other activities relating to the topic and not have to do two separate topics for a subject.
• Access to additional exciting ideas for other project packs from Hands of a Child. If my children want to know more about a topic after we have finished a lapbook set I may be able to find additional resources on the topic with just a couple clicks. The tone and layout of the Unit Extenders is very similar to the original unit so they are easy to transition into. 
• The unit extenders also provide substitute ideas if I am trying to tweak an upper level project pack for my youngest. Age wise he falls at the top of the cutoff for the early elementary units, so sometimes unit extender ideas work to swap out a challenging concept of a higher level project pack for an easier one. 
• Unit extenders are also a great resource for simple "Mom, I want to know more about..." activities. Many of the activities in the unit extenders are active, not paper and pencil activities. Thus unit extender ideas are perfect for doing something different and hopefully fun. There are also a number of web links included which are a wonderful resource for integrating technology into your curriculum.
• The economic value of a Super Membership can't be beat. While the initial cost is more than the equivalent cost of one or two lapbooks,  after several months you will have received lapbook packs which have a value of more than what you paid.

 Most homeschool moms know the term 'curriculum junkie' refers to someone who loves to look at and often purchase new curriculum. While I don't deny I am one of them, I think I am also a 'lapbook junkie' as I can't wait to see,explore, and then guide my children through the new lapbooks each month from my Super Membership.

Disclaimer: I currently have a Super Membership at HOAC which I personally purchased. All opinions expressed in this piece are solely my own.  I have not been monetarily compensated for this piece, but maybe compensated with product.

Grammar Lapbook Makes Reviewing Grammar Fun

I was going through pictures on my computer the other day and found these. It has been a while since I wrote anything new here, so I decided I would write a short post and share the pictures.

Last fall my then 10 year old made a grammar lapbook.She had a pretty good grasp of the parts of speech and their usage and I really didn't want to bore her by going through them again, so I had her work through In the Hands of a Childs' Operation: English Grammar curriculum and lapbook. I simply wanted her to refresh her memory on them and at the same time introduce a couple new concepts

She generally enjoys lapbook projects, but I think she particularly enjoyed this one as the story line involves helping a fictional nation learn English. She also thought the story was partly a mystery because she needed to search for various clues and information and many of the mini books follow a detective theme.

The study guide and directions were simple enough that she was able to do most of the work and research on her own after I provided her with a couple of resources. In addition the hunt aspect made it interesting to her. This unique format also helped her to retain the new information she learned as well as provide another perspective on what she already knew.

Elementary Economics

One of the unpredictable things about children is what will catch their interest and when. Sometimes it is the least expected topic which is most interesting to them. Then what is even more amazing is when both of them agree on one single topic. My most resent experience in this regard was when both my 8 and 11 year olds decided they wanted to learn about economics.

Since they were both extremely interested I didn't want to pass up the opportunity, but I was left scratching my head about how and what to share with them. I figured this would be in addition to my current plans and  we wouldn't spend more than a couple weeks on it. So my first stop was the library website. I was able to find a couple books that looked to be on their level so maybe I would be able to pull something together. I also did some research online, but didn't find a whole lot to start with.

After studying the books from the library, I decided I would be able to use two of them. I also found one of my resource books had several hands on ideas for teaching economic principles. After further thought I decided to have them put together a lapbook to record what they learned. I started looking for lapbook sets, but couldn't find one on their level which addressed economics, not money. I purchased one, but it turned out to be too in depth. So now, I was making my own lapbook. This was getting to be a bigger project all the time. Some of the templates were fro sets I purchased, but I also made my own.

In the end the economics study consisted of activities learning about scarcity and value, wants and needs, and making value assessments. The lapbook contains mini books examining:

• What an Economic System is and the major types
• Wants and Needs
• What makes up the Economy
• The Government's Role in the Economy
• Goods and Services
• What Economics is
• Scarcity
• Taxes
• The Stock Market
• Which Government Agencies Influence the Economy

 This is what the finished lapbook looks like. We have to glue the two books together yet, but it was easier to take pictures first.

Lapbook Sale at In The Hands of a Child

My family has come to really enjoy making lapbooks in the course of their studies.  I have designed a couple of them myself, but over time we have also used predesigned kits.  Some of these sets we've used are from In The Hands of a Child.  Now they have a great deal coming up later this week.  As many businesses offer deals to their customers on Black Friday, In the Hands of a Child is doing the same thing.

On Friday you can shop HOAC's Black Friday sale and receive discounts of up to 45% off  HOAC products.

Then on Saturday, which has been named Smalled Business Saturday you can receive a fabulous discount on their Super Memberships.  

But that is not all, on Monday, Cyber Monday, they are also giving a discount on all in stock non-HOAC merchandise which they carry.

I love the Project Packs from In the Hands of a Child.  I really can't tell you how many of them my children have completed or want to do.  They have project packs available on many, many topics that it would be hard not to find something which a child  (or Mom) is interested in. 

A lapbook project would even be a great break activity for non homeschooled children.  HOAC has many holiday and seasonally themed project packs to would fit the bill. Many of them are so fun its hard to believe you are learning at the same time.  Also there are not many supplies needed either.  Just a printer, paper, scissors, glue, pencils or pens, and a couple file folders or similar weight paper. If you want to get fancy you can use colored paper or crayons as well.

If this sounds remotely intriguing, head over to In the Hands of a Child and check out all the awesome topics and products they have available.

Chemistry for Elementary Students

Our final science unit for last year was Chemistry.  This hadn't been part of my original plan for the year, but all of a sudden my children decided they want to learn about chemistry.  It is not easy to find resources for early and mid elementary on Chemistry.  But I did find a couple of books and a great lapbook that were at an appropriate level.  So I put them all together and came up with a fairly decent Chemistry unit. 

For our lapbook we used Foundations for Chemistry from "In the Hands of a Child."  I have yet to find a lapbook from them that isn't fun or exciting and this was no exception. While completing the mini books some of the topics we learned about included  matter, atoms, elements, compounds, the periodic table, and completed several experiments as well.  Even the experiments had their own booklets for recording the process and results.

     Both of the children completed their own lapbook.  The only difference was my daughter did the writing in hers and I wrote out some of the mini books for my son as his writing is still larger and all the information would not have fit in the space provided.

We made one minor change from the set and that was to use a library pocket for the chemistry timeline cards rather than the pocket provided.  If I remember next time I am looking for something to fill my spare time I will make labels for the library pockets that say "Chemistry Timeline". 






In case you are wondering about the pictures, I try not to put pics of my childrens' faces on here simply for safety reasons.  I wanted pictures that were a little different than just laying the lapbook on the table so I had them hold them up in front of their faces. 

The books we used were Fizz, Bubble, Flash from Williamson Kids Can and Chemistry Getting a Big Reaction  by Dan Green and The Periodic Table Elements with Style by Adrian Dingle.  The first book is an overview of the periodic table and has a number of experiments and activities as well as trivia about the elements. The latter two are extremely cute; each element or chemistry item is a character and has their own unique personality.

We really enjoyed completing these lapbooks, as well as many others we have used from In the Hands of a Child and look forward to using even more. In case you are interested in Foundations for Chemistry it is number 1109, but can also be looked up by title at "In the Hands of a Child. "

DaVinci Study

DaVinci Tivia

Did you know Leonardo took the name of the town where he was born, Vinci, Italy as his last name?
He wrote many of his notes backwards, presumably so others couldn't decipher what he had written?
He also sketched many new inventions?

During April we spent some time studying the life and work of Leonardo DaVinci.  My son was particularly excited about this as his birthday is the same date as Leonardo's - April 15th. We worked on this project off and on for the whole month, not that it was long, but we also had other studies and materials to use.  Our study encompassed several aspects.

The books we used were:

• Getting to know the World's Great Artists  Leonardo Davinci    by Mike Venezia
• Leonardo DaVinci for Kids His Life and Ideas      by Janis Herbert
  
• Beautiful Dreamer   by Robert Byrd
• Leonardo da Vinci : Discover the World of Leonardo Through His Apprentice's Diary    by Steve Augarde 
• The Stolen Smile    by J. Patrick Lewis
• Lives of the Artists:  Masterpieces, Messes, and What the Neighbors Thought   by Kathleen Krull
• Discovering Great Artists   by MaryAnn Kohl 

The children made lapbooks.  These were from a set that someone else wrote to go with the Venezia book.  All I had to do were copy and cut.  I was thinking I had purchased the set from Currclick, but when I looked for it today I could not find it on their site.

They completed a Famous Artist Biography notebook page about Leonardo.  This included the dates he lived, where, names of some of his works, and general information about him.  I purchased the set of notebooking pages from Notebooking Pages.com, but I believe the free artist sample on the site is Leonardo DaVinci.

I also had the children write about the Mona Lisa.  I thought since this is such a well known piece, that it would be beneficial for them to know some of the facts as well as uncertainties behind its creation and history.  The border paper used for that writing is also from Notebooking Pages.com .





Leonardo DaVinci was also know for his detailed drawing of everyday objects as well as he painting.  So to help my children look at all the details of something I had them choose an object or two around the house that could be easily disassembled and draw all the parts.  I asked them to arrange their drawings in the order how the item would be put back together.

The top picture is my 10 year old daughters work.  She drew a Pepper Mill. The bottom picture was drawn by my 7 year old son and he featured a flashlight with the batteries.






We only did a very few of the many activities and projects it would be possible to do in a unit about Leonardo DaVinci.  However, I think it was enough so we could all learn something and not be overwhelmed or lose interest in the topic.  There are still plenty of activities related to Leonardo DaVinci which we can do when we reach that time in history.