Kickbutt's Crazy Lapbooks

Friday, August 26, 2011

Landforms Lapbooks

http://cgullworld.blogspot.com/2008/08/top-10-glaciers-in-world.html
http://edtech.kennesaw.edu/web/habitats.html
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/hsw/10155-lakes-and-ponds-introduction-to-lakes-and-ponds-video.htm
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/hsw/11858-land-and-water-glaciers-video.htm
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/hsw/25531-learning-geographical-terms-high-landforms-video.htm
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/hsw/22706-learning-geographical-terms-low-landforms -video.htm
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/hsw/20531-natural-phenomena-spectacular-canyons-video.htm
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/hsw/11872-oceans-introduction-to-oceans-video.htm
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/geography/peninsula-videos-playlist.htm#video-18811
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/hsw/19472-shorelines-bay-video.htm
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/hsw/18848-the-southwest-the-great-plains-video.htm
http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/nalnd.htm
http://cybersleuth-kids.com/sleuth/Science/Earth_Science/Land_Forms/
http://www.eduplace.com/kids/socsci/books/applications/imaps/maps/g2_u2/index.html
http://www.kidinfo.com/science/geology.html
http://www.webcrawler.com/webcrawler_stoolfefbar/ws/results/Web/Landform%20For%20Kids/1/302360/RightNav/Relevance/iq=true/zoom=off/_iceUrlFlag=7?_IceUrl=true
http://www.edu.pe.ca/southernkings/landforms.htm
http://itouchmap.com/latlong.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mountain_ranges
http://www.onlinegkguide.com/2008/09/01/major-gulfs-of-the-world/
http://www.scienceclarified.com/landforms/Ocean-Basins-to-Volcanoes/Plain.htmlhttp://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20050914/Feature1.asp
http://scienceray.com/earth-sciences/physical-geography/the-worlds-most-beautiful-bays/

http://www.kidsgeo.com/geology-for-kids/0031-what-are-landforms.php
http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-maps/world-geography-map.html
http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-major-island.htm
http://www.squidoo.com/salt-dough-maps

Vocabulary Lapbook

http://www.teach-nology.com/worksheets/language_arts/vocab/five/
http://www.tampareads.com/wrksheet/index-4b.htm
http://www.vocabulary.co.il/
http://treasures.macmillanmh.com/georgia/teachers/resources/grade3/spelling-and-vocabulary-activities
http://www.proteacher.com/cgi-bin/outsidesite.cgi? id=12912&external=http://www.factmonster.com/cgi-bin/word&original=http://www.proteacher.com/070169.shtml&title=Word of the Day
http://www.perucsd.org/claundree/3rd%20grade%20spelling_words.htm
http://www.vrml.k12.la.us/cc/vp_gle/2nd/ela/trophy/2nd/speed_read/speed.htm
http://www.teach-nology.com/worksheets/language_arts/vocab/third /
http://www.vocabulary.com/

Lapbooks for the comming year - 2011-2012

Thursday, August 25, 2011

This come year....am I dead yet?

Well I'm very, VERY excited to report that my Latin curriculum is finally finished! (It only took me 4 months to design the 3 workbooks....of course they are all about 200 pages each). And I'm one of 4 women in charge of our cooperative this year - which is difficult as most of us only participated in 1 co-op semester before being on the board. Check out Latin Fructus for grades k-7.

Now, as most of you know, I usually spend most of the summer designing my comming years curriculum. But, due to the excitement of designing the Latin curriculum, and getting everything together for my oldest sons first appointment with a behaviorist on the road to his Aspergers diagnosis - the appointment is on Monday....gulp!!

So this week I've begun to compile our curriculum. Since it's kind of last minute, and since the boys are getting older (sniffle, sniffle), I'm doing a single combined curriculum. This means the boys will be learning the same subject, with the same topic, but different worksheet levels. I did it this way so I could finish the curriculum quickly - and they always end up joined at the hip for lesson time anyway. The cirric isn't completely done - but here's an example of our September breakdown -

Week 1:

Geography – City/State/Capital Maps
Cursive – U
Reading Comprehension – Main Idea & Supporting Facts
LA – Noun Review
Writing – Capitalization Review
Geometry – Angles
Math - Addition Review
Western Civ – The Greeks
American History – Native Americans
Science -
Music / Art - to be determined
Economics - to be determined
Spelling - Unit 1
Biography – George Washington

Week 2:

Geography – Map Scale
Cursive – S
Reading Comprehension – Amelia Earhart
LA – Pronouns
Writing – Capitalization Review
Geometry – Measuring Angles
Math – Addition Review
Western Civ – The Greeks
American History – Native Americans, MTH
Science -
Music / Art -
Economics -
Spelling - Unit 2
Biography – John Addams

Week 3:

Geography – Political Maps
Cursive – T
Reading Comprehension – Automobiles
LA – Possessives
Writing – Capitalization Review
Geometry – Triangles
Math - Subtraction Review
Western Civ – Alexander the Great
American History – French Indian War
Science -
Music/Art -
Economics -
Spelling -
Biography – Thomas Jefferson

Week 4:

Geography – City/State/National Maps
Cursive – Y
Reading Comprehension – Ben Franklin
LA – Look it up
Writing – Capitalization Review
Geometry – Lines, Rays & Segments
Math – Subtraction Review
Western Civ – Start of Rome
American History – Taxation w/o Representation –Boston Tea Party
Science -
Music / Art -
Economics -
Spelling -
Biography – John Quincy Addams

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Designing Your Own Curriculum

As many of you know, I've always designed my own curriculum's for the boys. It's not that difficult and it's waaaay cheaper than a pre-packaged curriculum. The only things I pay for are www.enchantedlearning.com and http://www.teachervision.fen.com which are great for printables I can't find for free or make myself. Here's the general idea of how I go about designing my own curriculum's -

I start my curriculum matrix using the books I have - "What Your ____ Grader Needs To Know", HS Year by Year, etc. I make a large spread sheet for the whole curriculum where I put all the lesson 'topics'
I search the web for free matrix from other boards of ed on what is expected for the spread of grades I'll be teaching (my kids are not in any 1 grade, they advance subject by subject as necessary)these are added, or adjust the curriculum spread sheet.
I make a general matrix of the expectations based on those printouts from #1 & 2. To do this, I usually write in a list of resourcces for each lesson.
I add or subtract from that matrix based on my own knowledge of my boys - do I think they need more challenge, what units I want to add in, etc.
I organize the Curriculum Matrix by month - Make a plan of how I can overlap lessons. It's very easy to go overboard and plan this insane curriculum. But, especially with multiple students, there are only so many hours and so many lessons you can do at once (there's also only 1 of me, but 2 of them). So I figure out how I can teach 1 lesson for different grade levels, at the same time - this means sometimes I might be teaching my youngest at a much higher grade level (then just making worksheets or lapbooks for his appropriate levels)
I make a plan of how I can combine lesson subjects. Again it can get overwhelming for the kids and me if I have to teach 12 subjects in a given day -- so I'll try to look at a lesson and try to think of how I can work multiple subjects from it - -for instance, The Trans-Continental Railroad, I'll search for ways engineers measured the distance between tracks and stations or whatever - MATH, then I'll find a Magic Tree House book that touches on it - READING, the kids can research which towns were most affected by the railroad and make a Travel By Rail brochure (GEOGRAPHY/HISTORY)....yes this lesson would take a few days, but I would not have to keep switching gears between subjects.
I search the web for resources - not just worksheets but research and teaching materials as well.
.I usually print EVERYTHING and organize it by month, so on the last day of the month (during the school year) I grab the next month's folder and organize it into 'week' folders, then on Friday, I take each week folder and separate it into 'day' boxes (which include manipulative's and such) so the kids can just grab that day's box and we're set. (Kinda like work boxes, but a little different). This organization is based on the Month Matrix.
Then I design any lapbooks we may need (I like to do a couple a month) and I get the boys' input on what they want their reading lists to be, and we choose our night-time reading books (I read these aloud).
Voila, all done!

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Physics Progression Questions Answered

In one of my online groups I had a mom ask me some questions about teaching science, and what progressions I suggest....here's my responses...

What books am I using for Quantum Physics?

We are using "Alice in Quantumland" and "Scrooge's Cryptic Carol" both are awesome for creating that visual picture for things that are so conceptual, as well as "The Cartoon Guide To Physics" and "Janice VanCleave's Physics for Every Kid: 101 Easy Experiments". But I've always just made my own curriculums.

What sequence did you use for beginning Physics?

Ok basically I taught/will teach them in this order -

Machines (levers, wheels, etc), Motion/Forces (intro Newton's Laws), Light & Sound/Waves, Optics, Matter/Fluids,Probability/Measurement, Electricity/Magnetism, Heat/Thermodynamics,The Atom, Quantum, Astro, Nuclear, The 10 Dimensions, Newton, Einstein, Steven Hawking, Neils Bohr = until the Quantum I didn't teach the formula's that went with the topics (since my kids were REALLY young when we started (toddlers) so much of the formula's were beyond them....that's why I introduced Newton then went back to it later in more depth - where I could include the mathematics (to a certain extent).

Although I also found my background made teaching math easier as well (haha) in that scientists like Physicists realize the 'numbers' in all equations are just titles or names for sets. This is the same in Physics with their advanced equations - each letter/symbol stands for another set. Believe it or not changing the 'number' names to symbols or letters keeps things more organized and less confusing. (of course many of the symbols also stand for other equations, but that's another matter). Many kids/teachers get caught up on the identifiers - the number 3 times the number 5 always makes the number 15 - then once the student reaches middle or high school we throw away the numbers in favor of letters/symbols for algebra when most student's lock up with confusion not understanding what the x's and the y's are supposed to be about, But I think I've digressed, lol...

Online Physics Resources?
Some of the websites I love:

http://www.school-for-champions.com/science.htm#Physics http://www.lbl.gov/abc/ http://www.chemmybear.com/shapes.html http://americanhistory.si.edu/kids/molecule/ http://www.mos.org/sln/Leonardo/InventorsToolbox.html http://www.howeverythingworks.org/ http://www.blackcatsystems.com/science/radiation.html
http://www.thinkingfountain.org/f/friction/friction.html
http://www.kqed.org/quest/television/view/397 (the science of a home run)
http://www.strangematterexhibit.com/
http://library.thinkquest.org/2779/
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/HFrame.html
http://mitchellscience.com/bernoulli_principle_animation
http://www.exploratorium.edu/snacks/
http://myweb.lmu.edu/gvarieschi/chimney/chimney.html
http://www.ncsu.edu/sciencejunction/station/experiments/EGG/egg.html#Pizza
http://ngsir.netfirms.com/englishVersion.htm
http://littleshop.physics.colostate.edu/onlineexperiments.htm
http://www.physicsclassroom.com/Class/newtlaws/
http://slinky.org/ Demonstrating Physics Concepts with the Amazing Slinky!
http://surfaquarium.com/IT/physics.htm

http://www.pitt.edu/~poole/physics.html = For the Physics Teacher

{My husband suggested} to do basic physics, then basic chemistry, before diving into quantum or more advanced/specific physics? He said she will need that basic chem before more advanced physics?

As i sated in one of my previous replies, my oldest is also special needs - he has Aspergers, which makes straight up math (like multiplication tables) difficult. He's way advanced with understanding concepts though - like he can explain multiplication, he just get's confused when it's a worksheet in front of him. Anywho - because of this difficulty we are going a little out of the norm for progression. If we were focusing on advancing through science in the normal way, including most of the basic (if not calculus) equations, then I'd say yes. You want a solid understanding of basic physics and chemistry before going into the conceptual (like atomic and quantum) this is because the math for these are really advanced logrythms and calculus - so if you don't understand the math behind Force = Mass x Acceleration then you'll never understand E = MC squared. BUT, due to the complication of being able to manipulate mathmatics I took a round about root. I'm doing some of the more conceptual stuff first, without the mathmatics. So essentially we are covering the 'discussions' without the 'proof' - which to a physics buff sound really stupid - why discuss something when you have no concrete evidence such a thing is viable? But when teaching on of the hardest things for me was to teach the boys how THEY needed to learn not how I wished I had been TAUGHT. So that's the reason for the book choices I previously mentioned - they offer very little in the way of math. They are discussing the concepts of Physics as well as the history of the science. That's why we plan on going back and focusing on some of the most intrumental scientists later - to focus on the PROOF once my son catches up with the math. I didn't want to hold him back - he loves the discussions - just because learning the equations are much like learning to read a foreign language.
When it comes to Chemistry - we plan on covering basic chemistry when we focus on Atoms and their structure - this is primarily because we have no access to an advanced Chem lab, so again much of our lessons will be more conceptual (how this substance and this substance come together to form this substance). We can do several 'kitchen' experiments and the rest we can postulate on paper, which often involve breaking things down to the atomic level. Then near the middle-end of the year, once the kids have a handle on the structure and behavior of an atom, and how one substances atom reacts/mixes to another we can start filtering in more conceptual/modern discussions on sub-atomic and atomic theory. Which naturally would lead to the next level nuclear fission.

An understanding of basic physics - essentially Newton's Laws - is essential before even entering a discussion on the more specific physics. Chemistry is somewhat debatable. If one understands different types of matter (liquid, solid and gas) and a tiny bit of the structure/differences of matter, as well as some very basic machines, then you can easily have broad discussions in Quantum and Astro Physics. Nuclear really should have a basis in light and heat (as it is all about radiation) and Atomic theory should have a solid comprehension of the structure of matter (atoms and molecules). But again, it all depends on how you teach basic physics. Furthermore for a solid A & P class one doesn't really even need to have physics nor chemistry, you could technically do it before biology as it really focuses so specifically on the human body as a machine.

That's how we've been working things though....as I always say, what works for one may not work for another.

Free Spelling Lists

I found this great link today to one of our hardest subjects - SPELLING -
http://www.homespellingwords.com/index.htm