Creation vs. Evolution Lapbook

Here are some pictures to share with all of you of our Creation vs. Evolution lapbook that the kids enjoyed creating this week. Please keep in mind that this was done with a third and fifth grader. At this young school ages my main focus was just on definitions, who Darwin was, to Compare and Contrast (just at surface level) and to give a few reasons why the theory of Evolution is false. Please excuse the spelling errors inside the lapbook that is one of our weak areas that I am addressing this year.
**Please excuse the website link on the lapbook cover. I should have had the kids cut that out before they pasted it. Oh Well.....



This is a photo of the Creation lapbook back cover.

To begin this lapbook I assigned each of my children a side to work on. Since my oldest is in fifth grade I gave him the Evolution side to work on and my third grader was assigned the Creation side.


Oh, I also would like to point out that these lapbooks were glued together as one giant lapbook. I hope that helps.


I had them also learn about the Scientific Method process. Something that was review for them from a couple of years ago. We talked about what are theories and how do they move from a hypothesis to a theory and them become a proven theory and ultimately a fact.

Here is a picture of the left side of the Creation lapbook. Many of the print ables for the Creation pages I got from Lapbook Lessons. This site is fabulous and if you have kids who enjoy lapbooking then this is the site to add to your favorites.

This is the inside center of the Creation Lapbook. The Garden of Eden picture I found just by googling it. My daughter loved it.

Here is the left inside of the Evolution Lapbook. The picture of Darwin was from Google.

This is the center section of the Evolution lapbook. Again the photos used here were found from Google.

This is the right and final section of the Creation vs. Evolution lapbook. The pockets that you see here were found at Homeschool Share website. This website is another one that needs to be added to your favorites list.

My son decided what the pockets were to be and he even wrote some information about each inside the pockets.

I hope you attempt to make a Creation vs. Evolution lapbook of your own with your kids we enjoyed making this one.

Blessings,

Amy

Creation vs. Evolution Our First Unit

Since our oldest Sport is in 5th grade this year I though that this would be the perfect time to cover Creation vs. Evolution and the age old question where is the evidence that the dinosaurs are mentioned in the Bible. I not writing this to open up a debate for anyone but to share with other homeschooling parents out there that these are the ideas, text and other resources that have worked with this age range of children.

This is our first year using the Heart of Wisdom teaching approach so please bear with me. I ordered the Creation unit E-book and we have been using this as our spine for teaching. It is very informative and I have breaking it up into bite size chunks for my Dancer third grader to follow along with us as well.

This whole week our main focus was on the Creation story from the Bible itself. Reading from the Bible laying the foundation of the two groups of people who believe in Creation but the two differ in old earth vs. new earth. From the old earth there are three groups within that camp, the Gap theorists who hold the belief that their is a gap in time from Genesis 1:1 to Genesis 1:2, the Day Age group that hold the belief that each day of Creation mentioned in the Bible was spread out over millions of years, and finally Theistic Group they hold the belief that God used evolution as a form of controlling the earth.

Now I understand what you are thinking how in the world do you teach that to a fifth grader if you alone don't understand it. Luckily, my Sport loves to read. We have been reading and taking notes. When we are finished I am hoping to have the kids construct a Creation vs. Evolution lapbook.

Another lapbook idea I found for my kids to do was a Creation one in itself. Even Racer made a Creation lapbook of his own. I found the information from Lapbook Lessons. A great site for ideas and templates provided.

I had the older two work on a circle Creation lapbook that I found from a homeschooling blog called Barracudas Lapbook Corner. She even provided a short video how to cut out and fold the circles to make the book. My hat goes off to her.

I hope these ideas will be of some help to those of you who decide to a Creation vs. Evolution unit with your children. Please remember this is an important topic to not only discuss with your children but to press God's truths on their hearts. To teach both sides to them so when the opposition arises they may know the real truth!

Blessings,

Amy

Fun and not so Fun First Week of School.....

At first glance of the blog title I know what you are thinking.... We have all been there once in our lives. We were so excited to start to school but once school had begun we couldn't wait for the day or year to quickly come to an end. I am sorry that was not my intention for posting that title for you. You see, I have a new Kindergartner this year and he was feeling under the weather this week. He was suffering from that nasty head cold that seems to be going around. He still celebrated and did a relaxed style of learning this week and he was a real trooper through everything. As a Mom I made sure he had plenty of love from Mommy, lots of juice, and the comforts of his parents bed with the humidifier on. He is now on the mend and is bouncy back to his happy self once again as the week drew to a close.






Our first day kicked off with a special breakfast. I made them some special butterfly rolls. Here is a close up picture of one of them. I found the idea on a website. I am sure if you google it you may find it, if you are interested in making them for your little ones too. To make them take a roll of the large oven baked biscuit dough such as Pillsbury. Remove all 8 biscuts from can and slice each one in half. Spread each with a small amount of the jam of your choosing and seal it carefully. Cut them in half lengthwise, making two halves of a biscuit. Bake in oven according to the package. Cool completely. Join two pieces together and add Rediwhip cream for the butterflies body, strawberries, chocolate for eyes and I used a fruit roll-up cut and rolled for antennas. YUMMY!!


I also had the kids decorate a sign to show what grade they are in. We also filled out a questionnaire in which I measured their height too. The kids love to visually see how much they have grown. I'm also amazed how fast they are growing too!!

For the rest of the day the kids had fun decorating and personalizing their new school folders and getting to look through their new books.
All in all we had a great first day despite my Racer felling under the weather.
Blessings,
Amy

School is starting just around the corner????

How did that happen?? Summer is just about over and where did all the time go this summer. This summer has been so full with a list of endless events. From vacations to birthday parties the time just flew by too quickly. Just this past five days I have been busy teaching 29 kindergartners in my youngest son's class at VBS. I had so much fun and look forward to seeing them today for a huge summer snow day our church is hosting for all the kids and any additional more who would like to join for some cool and free fun. I look forward to seeing the kids I had in my class. They were a joy. In all our church hosted just shy of 500 kids everyday from age 3 to just completed 5th grade. We had over 70 kids who made the decision to accept Jesus as their Savior...Praise God for this! The kids had a blast coming everyday and many of them were sad that it had come to an end. If you are interested in seeing pictures our church has a new website www.skitministries.com and check out the summer section titled VBS 2008. There you will find slide shows from each of the five days.

Yes, the plan is to start school this Monday! Yikes! I'm almost ready. I have some last few things to prepare for my three munchkins. If you are curious what we will be studying this year here is a quick run down....

My Sport Nut (5th grade)

-Character Quality Language Arts Vol. 3 Level A
-More handwriting practice (this was one of our struggles last year-I need to give more individual attention to this one)
-English from the roots up 3x a week
-Spelling Power word lists
-Reading Comprehension (Assigned Readers)
-Teaching Textbooks Math 7
-Ancient History (Adam to Messiah)
-Creation vs. Evolution in Science followed by Christian kids explore Physics ( This is not your high school level Physics.. no need to panic..)
-Plenty of Art, PE, life study skills,AWANA, Home Ec and a new boy group involvement called Contenders of the Faith for boys.

MY Dancer (3rd Grade)

-Character Quality Language Arts Vol. 3 Level Pre-A
-Handwriting Practice
-Spelling Power word lists
-English from the Roots Up
-Reading Comprehension (Assigned Readers)
-Math 3 workbook review and firm up Math skills until Teaching Textbooks Math 4 hopefully is ready this winter for ordering.
-Ancient History (Adam to Messiah)
-Creation vs. Evolution in Science followed by Christian kids Explore Physics
-Plenty of Art,PE life study skills, AWANA, Home EC and a new girl group involvement called American Heritage Girls.

My Race car Driver (kindergarten)

-Phonics K review and to complete the book
-Explode the Code more Phonics review when K book is completed.
-Printing practice
-Lots of Reading with Mom and to Mom
-Math 1
-Unit Studies we will be working on this year: Bible Characters and major events such as Noah and his Ark, holidays and why we celebrate them, my community, family tree, Pledge of Allegiance, and a few Science and nature ideas thrown into the mix too. Lots of lapbook creations with these units.


Well those are my plans they are never set in stone I have learned over my many years of homeschooling. You ask how many this will be my 6th official year of homeschooling but really I began from birth with all of them.

Plans are never to be set in stone. Days change, events and opportunities arise and I want to be especially open to God to be the lead of our days. HE may have a teachable moment for all of of us here at Homeplate to learn from. We shall see.

Blessings and have a great weekend!
Amy

PS. My hope is to add more pictures soon....

I added more photo pages...

Please scroll down to see the new photo pages I added to the slide show.

Enjoy!

Amy