Hot Air Balloon Lapbook

We made a hot air balloon lapbook to go along with the book, The (Mostly) True Story of the First Hot-Air Balloon Ride, by Majorie Priceman. Little One Books sent us the book and is also giving a $25 gift card to one of my readers, just click here and enter to win on my blog.

Homemade Hot Air Balloon:
We used a plastic bag and cut it almost in half, then stitch around the outside, and used a piece of egg carton for the basket. The basket has four pieces of thread, the same length stitched from the basket to the balloon.
We then placed a hair dryer in the balloon opening and turned it on...up it went, but it was hard to take a picture of it. The girls learned that hot air makes the balloon rise. You can find a good tutorial over at Ramblings of a Crazy Woman. Using a candle would be a better representation of how a hot air balloon works, but the hair dryer got the point across.

The first hot air balloon was invented by the Montgolfier brothers in France. It was first thought that smoke was the force that lifted the balloon, but years later  it was discovered that hot air rises because it weighs less than cool air.

It may not be true, but the story goes that the first riders in the hot air balloon were a rooster, duck, and sheep. We learned counting by 3's.

Some new words from the book included: splendid, ambassador, amateur, aeronaut, and slender.

This sticker B was made by Jem for balloon.

The front of the lapbook: We learned the points on a compass and colored the first balloon design.

Inside: Pictures of who watched the launch, sequence cards on the stages of launching a hot air balloon,  new words, and a map of France.

I found great resources for the book and hot air balloons over at Homeschool Share.
Linked to:

Little One Books Giveaway- Hot Air Balloons

We love "Hot Air: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Hot-Air Balloon Ride" from Little One Books. Today we are working on a lapbook to go along with the story. We will be posting pictures and crafts from our hot air balloon adventure tomorrow.


Little One Books if kindly offering one of my trusty readers a $25 gift certificate to their online store.

The owners of Little One Books, Barney and Joan, have personally selected and reviewed each and every item they carry. The Little One Books site is organized by age, and each product is matched to what they believe is the youngest appropriate age.

In addition to selling quality products, they strive to entertain and inform their customers through their blog and feature articles, and provide “over the top” customer service.

This Little One Book giveaway is open until Friday, January 7th. They request that you “like” Little One Books on Facebook, and sign up for their newsletter. So check out their lovely website and decide which product you would like to win. To enter just leave a comment telling me what book you would be interested.

Be sure to check back tomorrow to see our hot air balloon lapbook!

Katy No-Pocket- Before Five In A Row

Katy No-Pocket is an adorable story about a mama kangaroo who is in need of a pocket to carry her baby. This book is illustrated by H.A. Rey, who is famous for Curious George, and written by Emmy Payne.

We worked on letter K and added picture of like kite, kangaroo, and kettle to the K pocket.

A cute little finger play.

We matched animals with their homes.

We learned about animal families. A female Kangaroo is a boomer, a male- flyer, and a baby- joey.

What lives in a tree? We also used aprons to carry our baby animals around the house.
You can find cute lapbook ideas for Katy No-Pocket at homeschool share and Christian homeschool hub.
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Little Nino's Pizzeria- FIAR

Our Five in a Row Co-op had a fun time today reading Little Nino's Pizzeria, by Karen Barbour. We talked about having a servant's heart, how bigger isn't always better, and how we can help others. Instead of making lapbooks, we made folder menus for our pizzeria story.

We made homemade pizza, along with some pizza topping math, learned words in Italian, and made a Matisse type drawing for the back of our menu. I printed some cards on what you can add to a pizza to play a memory match game and we learned about homonyms- words that sound alike, but are different.

You can find a variety of ideas for Five In a Row books at homeschool share - this site is really a great resource.