Weekly Wrap Up: Lap books, History Notebooks & Swimming

History Sketch Books

A great week!  We were able to get a fair amount accomplished.  I really LOVE those weeks.  We started a history sketch book for our lessons.  We are using Donna Wards All Inclusive History Bundle for Canadian History.  This is an excellent package.  This particular notebook page was about the flag of England and France.  They coloured the flags and wrote a brief description about them.  The flags sparked an interest to look up more countries and their flags so we looked some up.  There is certainly no shortage of flags! They were keen to look up all sorts of interesting ones, picking out the ones they liked best.  

We also read through some pages of The Kids Book of Canadian History.  That is a beautiful book!  The illustrations are colourful and engaging and the information both accurate and interesting - just enough to cover a topic without being overwhelming.  We also read through the first chapter of the Natives Peoples (Discovering Canada Series).   It was filled with interesting facts about the Native People along with some sketches of villages, homes, toys etc that the Native People used.  They sketched some of those too, particularly the various canoes. :)

Apologia's Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day Lap Book

We did some work in their Science Lap Books.  We have begun working our way through Apologia's Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day.  The kids requested we do this one for Science this year.  I'm not using the notebooks, we're doing lap books for our study this year.  In past years we have used the free notebook pages for the kids on the apologia website.  I found that was all we needed for this age.  Here's the link, just click on: Course Notebook for the free pages to print.  This time around we're using Exploring Creation with Zoology: Flying Creaures of the Firth Day Lapbook by Cyndi Kinney.  This is a fantastic lap book series that compliments the Apologia's Textbooks.  I love how clear the instructions are and the fact that you can photocopy the sheets for your students.  They will be building on the pages each week with useful information.  I appreciate how the lap books are like an on-going project all year long.  I also enjoy the unit style approach to Science.  I feel like they get a complete picture of a topic. 

A little bit of fun to end Swimmer One Swimmers Class!

We ended the school week with swimming lessons, always a fantastic way to end the week.  The kids look forward to seeing their friends and doing their swimming for the afternoon.  My youngest one was treated to some fun at the end of the lesson! :)  She was pretty happy about that! 

Now that we are back into the swing of the school year (after being on holiday for three weeks in September), I have gone back to that half hour each day of personal reading time for each child.  They picked out some good books.  My eldest read through a couple books (Sarah: Plain and Tall, and The Cabin Faced West).  For my son we are reading through The Art, the Reed and the Fire Cloud.  He has been loving that!  :) 

We also had some good friends come over for turkey dinner after swimming!  I had been so sick the week of Thanksgiving that we weren't able to make a Turkey Dinner.  We planned for a late Thanksgiving dinner with some friends.  It was a nice refreshing time and everyone enjoyed themselves.  What a great way to end off the week days! :)

We're looking forward to next week.  Monday is Book Club.  The kids are super excited about this.  I run the Junior Book Club for a small community of homeschoolers.  We just finished Peanut Butter Friendship in a Chop Suey World.   I have about 12 kids in my group.  It's been a great experience thus far.  This will be our 4rth month running it.  I have some fun activities planned.  My kids have been privy to it so that's why they are looking forward to Monday with such anticipation! lol  I will blog about it in my Book Sharing Monday post the following week.  It's been a joy to listen to the kids and their observations about the books we have been reading.  They have such unique perspectives and enjoy sharing.

This Weekly Wrap Up is linked back to Weird Unsocialized Homechoolers Weekly Wrap Up.  Join in the fun with your own weekly wrap up!