My Father's Dragon Lapbook

Den and I both enjoyed My Father's Dragon (under Sonlight Read Aloud) very very much.To help Den to understand the story better (and because it is so fun!), we make a lapbook on the book. Most of the things we put in our lapbook are reproductions of the free templates at http://www.homeschoolshare.com/my_fathers_dragon.php. I did not use all the templates but only those I thougth Den would be interested in. I was right.

The story: It is a fantasy story about a boy - Elmer (author's father) who travels to Wild Island and saves a baby dragon. The baby dragon was enslaved by the wild animals in the island. Needless to say the wild animals are not too happy about the boy and try to catch him. The boy has a knack sack with him and inside there are lots of things that help him to escape the animals.

I decided not to make the usual lapbook. Because the size is too big and too hard for me to keep. Instead, I just used two slightly heavy (140gsm) A4 color papers and stapled them together.

This is the front page, I photostatted a page from the book and pasted it on the A4 paper. Den and I colored it together (she did 80% of the works).

For the title, I wrote it lightly on the page and then let Den trace on it. She can write them her self but it might be a bit ugly....so I decided to let her traced instead. Don't tell her I said that.

Behind the front page is page no 2:

At the bottom of page 2, I pasted a color map of Island of Tangerina and Wild Island. The one in our book was b&w. I found this at the internet.

The Green square on the Left said "How Many Tangerine?" at the front. Elmer took some tangerine when he first landed on the Island of Tangerina. Along the way, he ate some and then pick up some again. I thought that was a good opportunity to practice math.

So inside, I let Den recorded down the number of tangerines Elmer picked up minus the one that he ate and plus the ones he picked up again, etc etc. At the bottom, we had some space, so we also calculated how many lollipop he had.

This is how it looks like inside:

The orange pocket on the top right of page 2 said "New Words" on it. Inside is a long strip of paper that can be fold together. I wrote some of the new words we learned from this book and their explanation.

This help me to use the new words in our daily conversation.












If you open up the white strip of paper in the middle that says "Crossing The River", you will see 17 crocodiles lining up. Den drew a lollipops on their tail. Why? This is one of the funniest part in the book. In order to cross the river, Elmer tricked the crocodiles. He stick a lollipop in the bank of the river and a crocodile swims up to lick it. Elmer then tied a lollipop to that crocodile's tail and another crocodile came to lick the lollipop tied to the first crocodile's tail. After all the 17 crocs lined up to lick lollipops, Elmer walks across the river on their backs.











Page 3:

The top is Elmer's knack sack. Den colored the knack sack. It can be flipped open up this way:

I printed and cut out all the stuffs he carried in his knack sack individually like this and put them into the sack. All the items can be taken out and then put back:


Every time we read the book, we take out the items that the boy used.











The white square on the bottom left says, "Seven Terrible Tigers" is another good way to practice math and for me to introduce the concept of multiplication. When you open it, there are 3 question inside. You can open up each question individually and write down the answer inside. For me, the most important thing is the calculation, not the answer..
For example, for the first question - how many mean green eyes that 7 tigers have?
This is what we wrote inside:
2+2+2+2+2+2+2
= 7x2
= (I let Den check her time table for answer) 14




It continued the same way for the other 2 questions.




I am not teaching multiplication yet but no harm in introducing the concept and let her realized how much it will helps to solve question like this. Hopefully this will motivate her to memorize the time tables when time comes.


The Red envelop on the bottom Right hold a small booklet called Mouse says...

There is a very silly mouse in the book that always mispronounces his words. Den loves the mouse and what he said. So I make this booklet for her and inside I wrote down what the mouse said in the book. For example:

"Queer, queer, what a dear little dock! I mean, dear dear, what a queer little rock!"

Den loves this booklet and carries it every where she goes. She even brought it to the reunion dinner!

That's all on our My Father's Dragon Lapbook. Hopefully this make it easier to understand!

For review & info --For K books - http://www.squidoo.com/booksforK
Pre K books- http://www.squidoo.com/ahomeschoolingmomjornel