Lapbooking/Notebooking/Scrapbooking Your Homeschool Adventures

Have you ever attempted something that looked easy and found that you were, at the very least, inept at it? Have you ever tried folding and making "minute books" or "minit books" for lapbooks? It seems to be a new craze in homeschooling this lapbooking thing. I'm thinking, sure, why not, looks fun! WRONG! Folding the little booklets that will hold all the information in cute folded designes is not for the weak. If they would have asked me to name them "minute book" would not have been in my top 5! Now, to be honest, I've never done well on the spatial relations portions of standardized tests. However, I was just about ready to throw in the towel-er-um-paper until I got a message from one sweet ami* of Homeschool Share who, true to her site's name, shared with me templates for minute books. The boys and I sat down and made several of these little dudes so that we are ready for lapbooking, notebooking, or scrapbooking---whichever suits our fancy at the time!

Hunting Grasshoppers

We set out for an evening nature study complete with quilt, picnic supper, fruit jars of cold sweet tea, camera, and a B.B. gun. Don't ask me what the B.B. gun was for, I am just the mom. We headed north of town several miles on the winding dirt roads, up through the big bend in the irrigation canal and ended up on the prairie grassland and found several of these

Plains Lubber Grasshoppers.

Have you ever in your life seen a grasshopper this big? I haven't either. The grassland north of us is just teeming with these humongous hoppers. These are Brachystola magna according to our research. We gathered up about 8 of these guys to watch them for a few days. The wings are very small on this "brand" of grasshopper making it impossible for the creature to fly. (Easier to catch that way!)

"The Robinhood"

My friend Jill was over for a visit this morning and told me she saw a baby robin hopping around our yard. I am assuming it was Mamma Robin making such a rukus...chirping and swooping, flying and lighting on a nearby branch. There were actually two adult robins doing this. An aunt maybe? EDIT: After doing some more reading in Comstock, I find that the 2 robins are actaully the parents of this young bird.

Our Comstock book says, "It is an anxious time for the old robins when the young ones leave the nest, and they flutter about and scold at anyone who comes in sight, so afraid are they that injury will come to their inexperienced young ones..."

This certainly proves true! I know I am causing these two adult robins some stress, and undoubtedly scaring the feathers off the baby, so I'll go in now and let the lessons in the "Robinhood" continue peacefully. Besides, the mosquitos are about to eat me alive this muggy Friday morning.