The Grouchy Ladybug lapbook

Today we did not other school work but to make a lapbook for The Grouchy Ladybug. Lately I have been a justifiable slacker. I have a back condition and am waiting patiently for 2 weeks to fly by so I can have back surgery. I have learned a couple of things during this time. 1) My over ambition school schedule is not going to work right now and 2) any ambition at all is being squashed out by the effects of pain medicine. So I have had to come up with plan B. So plan B has been to do as much as I can and not fall behind (in the school's mind) on subjects.

Today I did something completely unprecedented...I skipped all my GCA work and did something completely different. And it was FUN and Andrew loved it. I was over at http://www.homeschoolshare.com (one of my faves) and noticed that they had a lapbook study on The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle. We happen to have the book from the library and I happened to be up way earlier than the kids so I went to work on cutting. Lapbooks at his age involve a whole lot of cutting for the parent because even if I gave him a little bit, there is no way that he could do it. Lapbooks at his age can also be very busy workish. But it was educational too. Example of what a lapbook looks like.

So here are the contents of our lapbook. It didn't really have any creative elements of my own. I pretty much just printed and cut out most of the ideas found here.

Outside flaps - I had him copy The Grouchy Ladybug in his best HWT effort. He did good. He also colored a picture of a lady bug. He wanted to color it half red/half orange.

Left flap - Counting with the Grouchy Lady Bug. I see no where in the book where it counts at all but ours has this accordion style number thing that counts by 5 which is something Andrew did in Math last week. It also had the suggested Bible verse of Ephesians 4:32 - Be kind to one another - since the premise of the book is a grouchy lady bug who won't share and goes to pick a fight with everyone.

Center section - A turn wheel for L is for..ladybug, lemon, leaf, lion. This was fun busy work. Andrew likes things that turns with brads. I had him paste the pictures of the item next to the word. The bottom half had the most time consuming thing ever. It was a flap book that goes from 6 AM to 6 PM just like the actual book and Andrew had to draw the time on the clock, paste the animal of the story on the right time, then paste the name of the animal on. It was good for Time (current Math subject) and animal identification. And good for general fun as Andrew had fun reviewing the book and then pasting all day long. Nothing is more fun than an all day glue stick.

Right flap - Parts of a ladybug - matchbox thing where Andrew pasted the parts of a ladybug onto a picture of a ladybug. More busy work. We can't find it but we also did a little book called Follow Directions and it gave instructions on adding details onto 4 ladybugs and then writing totals for all of them. Useful multiplication intro. 4 lady bugs, 3 spots on each, 12 spots total. Woo.

This took all day. I was completely unstressed by the fact that we didn't do any "real" school. Andrew had a blast and would lapbook every day if I let him. I am thinking maybe a lapbook a week spread across the days probably wouldn't interfere with our actual school work too much so we will work that out in the future. Today felt like Kindergarten. Easy, laid back, just went with the flow...