Wednesday 28 February 2018

Have you seen this Humpty Dumpty lapbook video?

My first foray into video making. I hope you like it 😊 🙏


Happy Exploring!

Friday 23 February 2018

Logbook or Lapbook?

If you have already used Picture Book Explorers, you will know that the pack suggests that you keep a Logbook of your child's work. Sometimes, you may prefer to make a lapbook instead. What's the difference?

Well, a Logbook is a more compact means of storage, with a single A4 spiral bound notebook being perfect for the job of containing half a dozen or more units. All the minibooks, maps, flags, artwork, photographs can easily fit in. The timeline and any notebooking pages will need to be trimmed down. Work can be stored either in five different sections that correspond to the five daily sections suggested in the topic packs, or each book can have it's own section, rather like a diary of a continuous learning journey :)

Some of the Picture Book Explorers project packs lend themselves to creating a lapbook more easily than others. PBE ~ The Tale of Jemima Puddle-duck was created with a lapbook in mind :)
 
But what about the topic packs that have more of a mix of notebooking pages and minibooks, like Dogger, for instance? Can you still make a lapbook? Yes, of course. You may have to be a little more creative, making simple fold minibooks from coloured paper, or folding the notebooking pages in half or into quarters to create a little folded booklet. Children can write or draw labels to stick on the uppermost section to add titles to their self-made booklets. You may want to add extension flaps for artwork so that it doesn't have to be folded. All this adds to the personalised, tailor-made education that your child is receiving from you :)
 

Younger children may find lapbooks a little less daunting to complete, whereas older children may enjoy the continuity of a Logbook. My daughter certainly enjoyed her first Logbook with its five tabbed sections. She labelled the tabs with the subjects covered over the five days of each lit-based unit study. She was a little older than the suggested age range and was preparing to move down the separate-subject road that leads to exams. My son, however, prefers the continuous learning-journey-diary approach for keeping a record of his Picture Book Explorers adventures. When he was younger, he loved his single book lapbooks and was so proud to show them to friends and family. 

So, lapbooks or Logbooks? Which do you prefer?     

Friday 16 February 2018

Picture Book Explorers ~ Tabby McTat

Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler are a winning team, responsible for some of the most well-known and best-loved UK children's books. Tabby McTat is a lovely book about a busker's cat who loses his owner and finds him again. It's so easy to use the book as a springboard into learning with it's delightful story and colourful artwork.

The Picture Book Explorers ~ Tabby McTat is full of hands-on experiential educational activities for different learning styles that can be used to fit many different HE philosophies.
 Children can write songs, learn about rhyme, make an ink pen from a feather, create artwork in the style of Axel Scheffler, explore the science of sound, make a guitar, explore maths through music and money and make a regional dish. There are maps, worksheets, a timeline, flashcards, minibooks and fact sheets for families who enjoy paper-based learning  :)

As with all Picture Book Explorers unit studies, full instructions are given for all the activities and all necessary printables and information are included. The project pack leaves scope for discussion, expansion and individualisation. There are activities for all abilities and ages within the suggested range of 5 to 10, but you can easily adapt the activities for tag-along under 5s and over 10s. Under 5s may need more support and over 10s can set about the task of doing their own research and extending the information available in the pack :)




A selection of pages from Picture Book Explorers ~ Tabby McTat

Happy Exploring!



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Friday 2 February 2018

Black Dog

Have you checked out the new resources in my catalogue?
The suggested age range for Picture Book Explorers ~ Black Dog is 5 to 10 years old. It’s
one of the smaller PBEs and is part of a series with a focus on the science of weather.
The book, Black Dog by Levi Pinfold, is beautifully illustrated. The level of detail in the
pictures of the Hope family home kept my son engaged for ages.
We did all the activities in the pack for testing purposes, but you can pick and choose which
ones suit your family best. We had a great time learning about British folklore as one of the
activities and my son wrote his own Black Dog poem after reading the original folk song.
(Links to the original lyrics are in the pack.) Making paint out of egg yolk was definitely his
favourite activity

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Instructions for these activities and many more are included in the pack.

I have to say that we were very lucky because it snowed at the perfect time for this pack,
but please don’t let lack of snow put you off exploring this fabulous book. There are other,
year-round science activities and the snow related maths can be done at any time of year.
Keep checking back for the next four Picture Book Explorers in this new weather science series.
I'd love to hear about your child’s favourite activity in Picture Book Explorers packs 👩 

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