The majority of this project was done last year. Initially, it was only going to cover a couple of months, as I didn't think Chi would be overly enthuiastic about the prospect of monitoring the weather every day, for a whole year, but actually, he ended up suggesting that that was what we do...so we did! In fact we did 13 months so that we would be able to compare the same month a year apart.
It's not a particularly flappy lapbook this one. We used two folder files put together to give three 'pockets' for work to be contained in...
This is the first opening...
On the left hand side are several folded A3 sheets attached to the base with a filing clip. These A3 sheets were what Chi initially recorded daily weather details on in September and October 2008...
He recorded the temperature at 9a.m. and the amount of rainfall in our rain gauge. Chi also noted down what the weather was like at various points through the day. I tried to vary this a bit each week - one week he recorded the weather in French, another week he had to use synoptic weather symbols, another time he had to compare the weather with a weather forecast...
He recorded the temperature at 9a.m. and the amount of rainfall in our rain gauge. Chi also noted down what the weather was like at various points through the day. I tried to vary this a bit each week - one week he recorded the weather in French, another week he had to use synoptic weather symbols, another time he had to compare the weather with a weather forecast...On the backs of each of these, are various illustrations of weather related activities and information we looked at, including...
...a lift the flaps water cycle...
....Cloud types and their meanings... The Beaufort Scale...
..and statistical analysis of the month's weather.
..and statistical analysis of the month's weather. There are also pieces on Air Pressure following a make your own barometer experiment we did...How hurricanes are formed...Weather fronts and what they actually mean... the expansion and contraction of air as it heats and cools....and, at the end, this weather quiz, with pulloutable answers that Chi wrote...
We also looked at the different layers of the Earth's atmosphere, and made a pie chart to show the percentage of different gases in the air...
The second opening... 
...has a demonstration of how lightning is formed - after we had made our own lightning! :-)
And another filing clip holds in all the other worksheets, quizzes, charts, pictures etc connected with the project...
The final opening...
This is where the comparitive barcharts and graphs for the years weather results are displayed, and also has a small pocket for...
...his records book and...
...his records book and...
...this Cloud Finder he made at our Home Ed Group.For our activity at the Home Ed Groups 'Weather' day, we asked several people we knew around the world to collect rainfall and temperature data for us too, for a week, and then made a quiz using the results, and bar chart and a temperature comparison display... Chi also got to make this sundial there...
I can't remember all of the websites we used or found useful, (I will add them if and when I do!), but the Met Office does have some educational stuff on it...unfortunately complete with spelling mistakes when we looked at it! They also do a free interactive weather presenting CD-ROM that you can send off for from here - where it asks for school, just put home educator (if you are one!)
For us, this was a very 'Sciency' project, but there is plenty of scope with this subject to include many more literacy and arty type activities. The thing I found it most useful for was the amount of Maths we were able to sneak in, in the name of Science!! If Chi doesn't know how to work out a mean average now - having had to work out the average temperature for each month for thirteen months - I don't think he ever will...
3 comments:
Wow, this all looks very detailed!
You seem to do a lot on paper - I was wondering whether Chi is self directed in his learning or if you have a particular approach/curriculum (absolutely no judgement by the way, just genuinely interested).
Hi Hannah, this was a particularly 'papery' project...which is possibly why it has taken so long to get finished!!
We don't use a curriculum, to date it has definitely been more of a making-it-up-as-we-go-along thing, finding what works, and what doesn't.
We've found lapbooks to be a really useful way of displaying Chi's project work so that he can show it to people, which he likes to do - especially grandparents :-)I haven't used any of the pre-made-for-you lapbooks you can get online though, just adapted our own stuff to fit. Chi usually chooses the project subject and we come up with ideas for what to do between us.
In addition to project work, this year I am also insisting on a certain amount of core subject workbook work being done. There are a couple of reasons for this, one is that Chi, at the moment at least, is quite set on doing some GCSE's when the time comes, and while I know that he knows all the stuff, he struggles a bit with articulating what he means when answering questions, so I figure the more practise he gets now the better. The other main reason is that, due to the changes in law to Lone Parent benefits, I am having to find an extra 16 hours a week to work in, and need Chi to be able to get on with other things while I do.
While I said this is something I insist on, actually it is something we discussed at the beginning of the (school) year and that Chi was also in favour of.
We don't have a rigid time table or anything like that though. At the beginning of the day we work out a list of what Chi hopes to have done by the end of it, (not just academic stuff), and usually we manage to achieve this. This is always subject to change though, if say the weather happens to be really nice, or someone phones up and asks us to join them doing something more interesting ;0)
ECLECTIC is generally the answer I give if someone asks me what approach we use, and SELF-DIRECTED so long as I consider the direction to be a constructive one! (I am a closet control freak! :0))
MAndy x
Thanks for giving such a thorough answer Mandy! I always find it interesting to hear about other people's approach to HE.
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