We’re nearing the end of our pioneer studies around here. It’s been a very fun experience and we’ve still got another week ahead of us. The boys have really enjoyed things thus far, but were a tad shocked when I said they were each going to make a quilt as one of their final projects. Next week we’ll be coming to a close with the book Three Names. It’s a sweet book as told by a Great Grandfather to his grandchild. It’s about prairie life, a dog with three names, and the love of learning. I’m looking forward to rowing this book with the boys as I think they’ll each like the book for totally different reasons. We will be using various lapbook components that I managed to find on Homeschool Share as well as a few I made myself. Only, because I'm a slightly neurotic perfectionist I didn't just take the few booklets provided specifically for Three Names that Homeschool Share offered. I also did a bit of searching and found a few other various books that will tie in beautifully for the areas of this book we intend to focus on. Unfortunately, we won't be studying prairie dogs, despite the request, as our library doesn't have a single book on the little critters. I've promised the boys that I will purchase them a book about said mammals when I place the next book order. You can find the various lapbook components below: Three Names Minit Books Hyperbole & Simile booklets tornadoes tornado warning booklet tornado safety wind layer book hail matchbook (this pdf has two other matchbooks in it, not sure if we'll use them or not) dogs & here (we only used a very few from the second link) past & present chart (I think the clothes dryer will completely befuddle the boys; that's right, we don't own a dryer.) To go with all those awesome little booklets I made up a front cover, a measurment booklet, a map so we can locate the actual prairie states, a pet booklet, & vocabulary cards. Morgan is especially fond of the cover that I came up with. We're taking the opportunity with this book to learn a considerable amount about wind and tornados. Jayden has been terrified of wind nearly his entire life. He's weathered some wicked mad storms when we were living in Tennessee. The kind that shake your house, hammer you with hail, knock out the power, and set off the local tornado siren. To this day he has serious issues with wind, thunder, and lightening. I'm hoping that if we learn about them he might let go of some of that fear. Thankfully we don't get a lot of thunder storms here, but living close to the beach we can get some mad crazy wind. He seems to have gotten use to that except in the winter when it whistles around outside at night. Morgan, on the other hand, has hail issues. He's fine, usually, with thunder and lightning. Unless it shakes the house. However, hail just does him in. He stood in the middle of our bedroom one morning with his ears covered and just screamed top notch. Not because it was hailing, but because he thought it was. May gumtrees never grow to close to our house! I find that often times learning about something that scares the boys often helps them understand the "thing" better and thus gives them a better feeling about it. In order to accomplish this we'll be reading the following weather related books; those marked with an asterisk are easy readers and I may give them to the boys for reading themselves: Wild Weather Tornadoes (library)* Twisters (library)* What Happens When The Wind Blows? (library) I Face The Wind (library) Why Why Why Do Tornadoes Spin (library) Wind (library) Wild About Weather (library, and most likely won't arrive in time) What Will The Weather Be? Discover Weather We'll also be enjoying the following books this week: Dogs (library)* May I pet Your Dog? (library) Pioneer Days (lots of great crafts, recipes, & projects) On The Banks Of Plum Creek (our current Read Aloud) We've also got one final Pioneer Museum were hoping to visit, so a busy week ahead for us! You can now download the Three Names lapbook here, or by clicking on any of the pictures above. Share:facebook - twitter - pinterest Three Names