Has anyone rowed The Raft?

[Janee' in Texas]

I am looking for scrapbook, notebook ideas for this book. Has anyone done one so I can see? I am a visual learner and love to see all the creative ideas for storing information you come up with. Even if you do not have pictures please share what you did. Thanks! :kiss:

[Wendy in SW MS]

We just finished The Raft! Daniel was quite enthralled with the book!!

Frankly, I didn't do anything extra--other than the lessons suggested. Daniel spent the week drawing all the animals in the book, in his sketch pad!;) We weren't able to get ahold of popsicle sticks, so we couldn't get the raft made--but I think he will still attempt it at a later date. I printed off an outline of Wisconsin from Enchanted Learning (http://www.enchantedlearning.com/usa/states/wisconsin/), as well as a Wisconsin flag for him to color.

I picked up books about Wisconsin, muskrats, various other wildlife mentioned in the book. We started our classification list, too. I might alter that a bit, by using the pockets found here (http://www.homeschoolshare.com/animal_classification_system.htm). I wanted to take him to Silver Springs, where they have glass bottom boats--but the cost was way prohibitive!:eek:

Frankly, I use a notebooking system, rather than lapbooking. And I take a lot of photos!;) I make up a photo journal at the end of every school year (which reminds me, I don't have last year's completed yet!:lol: ).

[DD in IL]

One thing we did that dgs had fun doing is he made a pop sickle "raft" then he drew animals on it like the story did.

[Suz MamaFrog]

I don't have a picture, but maybe I can explain it graphically enough you can picture it in your head, alright?

1.) Take two file folders, fold them as you would to make a lapbook and glue them together using two halves of each cover. There's illustrations and directions here: Scrapbooking to Learn (http://www.scrapbookingtolearn.com/scrapbookfolder.html)

2.) On the one at the top, write VERTEBRATES and on the other write INVERTEBRATES.

3.) Glue small, square envelopes (I got mine at the discount card shop) with the flap up to the folders underneath the title.

4.) Label envelopes on the VERTEBRATE side MAMMALS, FISH, BIRDS, REPTILES and AMPHIBIANS. Label the ones on the INVERTEBRATE side INSECTS, WORMS, SEA CREATURES and SPIDERS. (I know this is a simplified version of classification, but it was our introduction to the concept, so I didn't want to get too complicated.)

5.) Create an accordion fold book (pictures and directions here: Accordion Fold Book PDF (http://www.sdmart.org/pix/accordionbook.pdf)) and glue it to the envelope body below the flap (or beside if your envelope is too small.) On its pages, write the characteristics of each type of animal. EXAMPLES: SPIDER book - page one - 8 legs, page 2 - 2 body parts, page 3 - spin web, etc. OCEAN CREATURES: page one - live in or near ocean, page 2 - no backbone, page 3 - soft body, page 4 - may have shell, etc.

6.) Now print off or cut out pictures of various critters and practice classifying them by placing them into the correct envelope. (If you want to make it a learning game, you can assign each envelope a color and color-code your critter cards/pictures in such a way as to make them self-checking.

This can actually become an ongoing thing, like the animal game in B4FIAR, classifying ALL the critters you encounter in FIAR or other reading/studying.

HTH!
Blessings!
Suz