Sword in the Tree Lapbook

One of the many wonderful things about using Heart of Dakota this year is all the wonderful books that we've been introduced to. They have all become favorite in our home and this is a great blessing for me. I never did much reading as a child but have been determined to expose my children to books from the very beginning.
We were able to do a lapbook a few months back on one of our very favorite books, The Sword in the Tree by Clyde Robert Bulla. Here is a look at what we did.

This is our cover page. I can't remember off the top of my head which girl drew the cover but it I do remember that they both helped come up with the design. (It's a sword in a tree). I glued the page on after the coloring and then cut it in half so that the book could be opened.

Upon opening the lapbook you will find three pages dedicated to knights since they were the main part of the story. The left and right sides are the backs of the cover and the middle page is an extra folder piece taped on at the bottom.

At the top left and bottom right of the side pages are my daughter's pop up books. They each wrote about their favorite parts of the story and then dictated their pictures to me.

The center page has a couple of Handwriting/Phonics books done in italics for both girls. Big Sis's book includes the dots for tracing but Biggest Sis's doesn't. The other two items on the page are for learning the names of the different parts of the Knight's armor and the castle. I will admit that we had to check the internet for the correct names to a couple of those! You can find most of our knight items here.

The girls also had a lot of fun designing their own shields.

The center flap opens downward to show even more learning books!!

When you flip open the center flap you are brought to our England page.
The story is set in Middle Ages in England so we decided to learn just a little about England. In the top center we put our map of England one fold book. The yellow shutter fold book opens up to show a basic map of Europe. The girls were to find where England is, color the country and then write down which continent England is on. The what happened next envelope includes seven small sheets of paper with drawings of different periods in history. For example there is one drawing of the manger scene, a drawing of pyramids, the signing of the constitution etc. The girls needed to try and figure out which event happened first and then sequentialy put the rest in order. This was a little hard at first but they got the hang of it and enjoy this little activity.

On the back side of the flap is some information about trees. We talked some about the Life Cycle of trees and then made a flap book from here. This was very interesting and it was amazing for us all to think that the Lord can take something so small and cause it to grow into something so large and strong. We also made a How We Use Trees T book. The girls realized just how important trees are! I also found a sweet little poem about trees that fit perfectly on the side of this page.

When the England page is flipped up you will find our 2nd page dedicated to knights.

We made a weapons flap on which we glued pictures of what each weapon looked like. That also took internet searching! ;) In the top right we glued a small orange Life of a Knight tab book. The girls loved learning about what a young boy went through in order to become a knight.
The bottom right side of this flap is where we added our vocabulary pocket. Aren't the little shields cute?! Since this was a new subject for us there was no shortage of words for this pocket!

Here is a picture of the center page of the lapbook.

This is our plot diamond fold book. (Sorry I can't remember the actual name of this type of fold nor where I got it from!) This book is pretty self-explanitory. It was a great way to help Biggest summarize the book into it's main parts.

This cute little tree shaped book is our Cast of Characters book. Including the title page there are four pages to this little book that are stapled together at the top and then glued to the lapbook. On each page I wrote a location for the title and then we brainstormed to think of all of the characters that we met at the location. This is how we divided the book up: at Weldon Castle we were introduced to Shan, Lord Weldon, Lady Marion, Lionel and Nappus. In the woods we met Pheobe, Adam, Magnus, Twigs and the robbers. In Camelot we met Sir Gareth, Sir Kay and King Arthur.

I don't have a picture of the Bible Verse shield but we used it to write down a verse that went along with the theme that we felt was important to the book, being strong in the face of fear! What a great lesson to learn!

All in all the book was a blast! The kids, even Brother, would beg me to keep reading! This was just an awesome story and I highly recommend this book to all families!!! The lapbook was pretty detailed but there was so much that we were able to do with this book! We truly enjoyed this adventure! Clyde Robert Bulla has become one of our very favorite authors!

I hope that you can use this lapbook in your own home!!

Our week in review 11/9-11/09

It's been a long while since I've posted about how our school days are going! That is with good reason too! I've made a promise to myself to stay off of the computer a little more and boy have I done it! I check my email but that's about it! It's been good for me and the kids but tonight I decided to go ahead and blog about how things were going for us here at Ruby Slippers...and once our son officially "starts school" I think I might have to come up with a more "gender neutral" name!

Anyway...we have been learning quite a bit this year about the Pilgrims and this past week we learned a little about what winter was like for them in Holland. It all sounded so cool! Especially the frozen canals on which everyone skated on to get from one place to another. We also talked about how the storks, whom the Dutch thought a lot of, flew south for the winter. One of our science experiements was to figure out why we do not need to migrate for the winter...although at times I wouldn't mind! To figure this out we were to wrap two equal sized pieces of ice, one in a light cotton item and the other in a heavier fabric. We were to predict which one would melt the least after sitting them outside for 15 minutes.


I'm not sure if you can see the ice very well but I'm sure that you know the outcome! The kids really got a kick out of this little experiment!

We have also "paddled" in the sink with a slotted spoon and slotted spoon covered with foil to figure out what the difference between webbed feet and the non webbed feet of the storks that the Dutch were so fond of.
There was also our little canal making experiement. We've had a great time with History and Science lately!

We also talked in depth about how the Dutchbelief that the storks brought them good luck contrasts what the Bible says about putting our faith in God and how every good gift comes from Him. That was an awesome conversation for us!

Story time has continued to be the highlight of our days! Every book that we have read for HOD has been a huge hit!! I chose to read The Sword in the Tree for our adventure story mainly because I couldn't find the others to purchase at a good price but the kids have LOVED this book! We are actually done with it early because they always wanted me to read "just a little bit more" so starting Monday we are going to do a lapbook until it's time to begin our next genre. I'll post a video when we are done. Once thing that we have talked in depth about is how Shan was such a bold boy and not afraid to hold fast to the truth even when it may have been difficult. We were able to tie that in with how we as Christians need to stand tall for Christ, not be ashamed of Him and have boldness in being His witness. Have I said that we are having an awesome time? The Lord is just bringing so much into our days!

Narrations are still hard for the kids but we are slowly working on them. I need to continue to pray for their growth in this area.
Brother is finally "back in school." He has been begging to do his work and has pulled his notebook and the LHTH manual down from the shelf everyday this week. So we picked back up and are on a review week so that we can brush up on his letter skills. Here he is practicing his sounds as he chugs his train along his train tracks shaped in the letters we were reviewing. (I had no masking tape and just saw those tracks sitting there and viola, a nice substitution!

Another activity we do to reivew his letters that he LOVES is called "Letter Knockdown". All I do is stand the letter cards up, say a sound and he has to kick, roll a car or whatever else I find for him to do to knock down the correct letter card. My son, unlike his sisters, is VERY kinestetic! Don't ask him to color, do a worksheet (or at least finish one) or anything else that requires him to sit for too long! With the exception of being read to he just won't be interested so I have had to wrack my "sit down and work" brain to come up with some activities for him. It's going pretty good so far!

Biggest Sis has done so well with her math program! Here are some pictures of her doing a few activities.
Here she is working on her place value lessons with the place value cards...

And here she is copying my abb pattern with her own blocks...
Something new for us this year is the Book-It Program. I remember doing this when I taught so it was kind of a nostalgic feeling to now be doing it with my children. Both girls earned their Pizza Hut certificate for meeting their goals for the month of October...yay!! They really enjoy this and I hope to be able to purchase some small prizes to go along with the certificates as well. The only hard part is remembering to fill in the reading chart!! Here is Big Sis with her certificate...

Some wonderful artwork

We spent a good portion of these past 8 weeks or so reading a biography about Helen Keller. The girls couldn't get enough of her story! Here is some of the artwork they did for their books.


Helen reading braille.

Helen searching for food from another's plate.

Helen and her baby doll.

Young Helen Keller and "Teacher" Anne Sullivan

Our week in review 10/5-9/09

I know that I haven't blogged about how school has been going lately but who has the time anymore?! I'm actually glad that I've spent less time on this computer though! All I seem to do anymore is check my email and that's it!

But anyway, our weeks have been great this year! The girls are doing so well in Beyond! They are absolutely LOVING the history portion of it! We just got through unit 4 this week (we are taking things at half speed) and are in our 8th week of schooling. In this unit we learned about the Pilgrims fleeing England for Holland to find religious freedom.

It was great to be able to discuss with the children how blessed we are to be able to go to whatever church we choose and worship God in whatever manner we desired and not have the government interfere...not yet anyway!

When reading about the Pilgrims finally landing in Holland we were given great details from the book about what it looked like when they landed! We then went on the internet to find more pictures of Amsterdam and windmills. Big Sis was so intrigued that she is determined to move there!! I told her that maybe the Lord will have her marry a man who is led to go to Holland to be a missionary.

We also read about some of the food that the Dutch eat (they put mayo on their french fries!) and it was awesome to see all those boats docked along the street edge. Amazing!

One of our activities this week was building a dike out of playdough in a pan to see if it would hold the water on one side of the dike or not. Apparently it is good that we did not help build dikes for the Dutch because ours leaked big time!

We finished up our Helen Keller bio. a week or two ago and plan on doing a very simple play to act out some of the main points of the story. Once we get that finished I'll post it up. We truly loved learning about Helen Keller this year! That is one story that will stay with us all forever!