Clean Rooms and Lapbooks (What's a lapbook?)

It's Friday afternoon here.  The sun is shining.  The sky is very blue.  The air isn't quite crisp yet, but the wind is blowing so hard that you can't tell.  I know that this beautiful October day is probably due to global warming, but I can't help but enjoy it.

Erik has been developing a gross cold and finally succumbed to his bed today, calling in sick to work.  I had the extra special challenge of trying to keep the boys quiet so he could rest.  We cleaned bedrooms first because they were getting out of control.  I wish I had taken before and after pictures, but I honestly cannot bring myself to photograph that mess.  Just think lots of Lego, some granola bar bits, a few broken Happy Meal toys, about six homemade treasure maps, scattered "treasures" (rocks) everywhere, and a big pile of little boy laundry.  Add trains and track for Paul's room and that pretty much paints the picture for you.  Oh, and don't forget the books.  There are ALWAYS books everywhere, despite the presence of actual book shelves in each boy's room.  But I'm happy to report that things are much better now.  :-)

I did take pictures, but I should explain about them.  In an effort to save myself some time, Erik has enabled his old phone to upload pictures directly to my computer using dropbox.  It's handy.  As soon as I take the picture, it's on my computer.  Fancy, huh?  The only problem is that this is an older phone and the pictures aren't that great.  I'll upload them and you can be the judge.  Do I need a smart phone?  Do I need an iPhone 5?  Or maybe just a 4s?  I hear the camera on the 4s is awesome.  Enough.  Here are the pics.

Paul's room about four hours after we finished cleaning.  It's still kinda clean.  Yes, that is crayon on the carpet.  Long story...I need to google how to get that business out.

This is the part where Paul smiles.  I'm not in love with the camera on this phone.  Just sayin'.

Luke's room approximately four hours after we finished cleaning.  Again...it's still in decent shape.

Not in love with the camera phone...but totally in love with this kid.  Does he look old to you?

One other cool thing that happened today was the beginning of our very first lapbook experience.  If you don't know what a lap book is, I'll tell you that I didn't either.  I heard about them on the homeschooling forum that I visit from time to time.  It's a method where you use file folders stapled together to create a surface where kids can glue stuff having to do with the literature they are studying.  Two years ago when Luke was doing kindergarten, I downloaded all this stuff to create lapbooks because ALL the kindergarten home school moms were doing it.  Come to find out, they were all ACTUALLY doing the work for their kindergartners!  Seriously.  There was NO way that this non-crafty mom was going to be cutting and pasting after school hours to create something that Luke would probably just junk after a week or so.  And that was the end of lapbooking at Lorene Park Academy.  Until today.

Luke is now pretty adept with his scissors, and he likes coloring much more than previously.  Paul is a completely different child altogether and has always been game to create something that may or may not turn out well.  With this in mind, I tentatively introduced the first mini-activity last week, a cool cut and paste that creates the backpack Elmer Elevator prepared for his trip to Wild Island in the second chapter of My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett.  Both boys loved it.

After the success with the backpack, I decided to bring out some of the other activities.  Luke spent about 20 minutes working on his gorilla and rhino parts today.  It's pretty fun because he colors the animal, cuts out the pocket and then does a little bit of writing and pasting.  The writing either has him remembering parts of the story or finding fun facts to include.  Today he used the index in his science book to find extra facts about rhinos.  Integrated learning, people.  I remember this stuff from college.  Honestly never saw it happen much in the public school classroom with 35 kids to wrangle.  It's MUCH easier with just two.

Luke works diligently while the beginning of his lapbook sits nearby.

Just so you know, I will NOT be adding any extra flair to this thing.  If you google "lapbook" you'll see some A-MAZ-ING stuff that second graders clearly did not create.  Luke's lapbooks will look like a second grader made them.  Because a second grader is going to make them. :-)

Paul, meanwhile, created this scene with a lion attacking a bison in front of a Lego fire station box.  This has nothing to do with anything, but it cracked me up.  Love the cutie five year old hand pointing out the point of attack.

Later Luke turned his stuffed boa into a scabbard for his sword.  He tied that himself.  He's a ninja.  I was impressed.

Dang.  This has been a pretty random blog post.  It's just such a good representation of our lives!  This is what we do.  It's a good life.