We are doing an abbreviated version of early modern and modern history this year so we can get back on the correct year in the 4 year history cycle next year.
You can find loads of free notebook covers on the internet from awesome homeschool moms who have done all the work for you and print them off. The covers I used can be found at barefootmeandering.com (scroll to the bottom for the freebies). This is the front of our notebook:
This is the back:
At the beginning of every year we have an "All About Me" page that goes in the front of the history notebook. After all, it will be history!
Behind that there are several lined pages that he writes history words from each section of the history book we're reading. He adds to it every week. Sometimes there is only one word, sometimes there are 2-3. I think he's up to 31 words so far (we're in week 22). Last week's words were archipelago and canal.
Then we start the notebooking pages. There are free notebooking pages out there on the web (mostly from those homeschool moms who do the covers), but I wanted a different layout and I wanted to incorporate some lapbooking elements into a few of them. I use Power Point to create my pages. I print them off on heavy weight paper so they will hold up well and be able to withstand the weight of the lapbook components.
The first page was on Mary, Queen of Scots. Indy wrote out information about her and then we added some photos in a small booklet.
When we learned about Louis XIV (he wrote the roman numerals wrong the first time), we did a page about Versailles since we went there last year. I included photos I took of Indy on our trip.
Here is some coloring he did when we studied Prussia (they came from The Story of the Word 3 Activity Guide). He just glued them down.
When it came to the American Revolution, there was just so much stuff, I decided that he could just do a bunch of lapbook components. He wrote in most of these (some I let him glue down the information instead of writing-there was a lot!) and then he glued them down to a piece of paper that I put a title on in Power Point.
For the Lewis and Clark Expedition, I just put a compass as a background photo. Oddly, this is one of his favorites. Well, I guess since he plans to grow up to be Indiana Jones, it kind of makes sense that he liked the compass, doesn't it?
The Civil Was was just as involved as the American Revolution! Good heavens. I took a slightly different approach to it though. Before adding the lapbook components, I had him fill out a timeline. This was very labor intensive. This is the front page.
This is the back of the timeline and some of the lapbook components. Some he wrote in, others he pasted down information.
This is the back of the second Civil War page and the page on Thomas Edison.
There are of course many more pages, but I didn't want to overload blogger with a million photos.
Most of the lapbook components come from either dynamic2moms.webs.com or homeschoolshare.com. These are all free!
I hope you enjoyed seeing a little slice of our year.
