Jun
Tales from the Circle C Ranch Book and Lapbook Review
Our favorite time during our homeschool day is when we read together. On a typical day I read a chapter from a book and Hailey reads a chapter from a book. We both look forward to reading time and I am always on the lookout for a good book we can use for school. When the opportunity came up to review Tales from the Circle C Ranch by Susan K. Marlow author of the Circle C Adventures series, I went to the website to check it out. I was able to download the first story in the book and was I immediately hooked! There is also Andrea Carter’s Tales from the Circle C Ranch Learning Lapbook that goes along with the book, and we love lapbooks so we were excited to check that out too!
So, how did we use the book and the lapbook?
Each day we read a portion of the book. Some of the chapters were short, so we could read more than one and others were longer. Sometimes Hailey did the reading and sometimes I did the reading.
Then if there was a part of the lapbook that went with the reading for the day we would do that as well.
This is the front cover of the lapbook.
This is inside the first folder.
Hailey’s favorite part of the lapbook was the Mercantile activity on the bottom left side of the red folder. In it is a price list of items one might have found at the general store in the 1800s. Hailey had to pretend it was 1874 and that she had $2 to spend at the store. She was able to pick several items, including a toy whistle for 10 cents, a comb for 40 cents, a harmonica for 60 cents, and a few other items.
This is the inside of the second folder.
One of my favorite lapbook activities was the limerick section. We learned how to write a limerick and that the sillier the limerick is the better. I thought it was going to be a hard activity for Hailey to do, but she loved it! She wrote several limericks, and we spent the rest of the day making up more silly limericks. She picked one of her favorites for me to share with you:
I had a lovely cat,
who was ever so fat.
He had another owner,
who was covered with toner.
The owner was a stinky rat.
Pretty silly, but we had a lot of fun with it!
I asked Hailey what she thought about Tales from the Circle C Ranch and she said it was a lot of fun to read. She said her favorite short story was The Best Gift of All, a story where Andi was at the store trying to find the perfect gift to buy for her mother. The problem was that Andi had spent most of her money, rather than saving it, so she couldn’t find anything to buy. Hailey said she enjoyed that story because she thought it was more special that Andi made a present for her mom than it would have been if she had bought her one. She also said she really enjoyed making the lapbook and all of the parts in it were fun to make.
I really enjoyed Tales from the Circle C Ranch and would definitely recommend it. Not only does it include fun stories, but it’s a great way to learn about the 1800s. I love historical fiction and I think using a historical fiction book with a lapbook is one of the best ways to learn.
Want to learn more about Circle C Adventures:
Thanks, Melanie, for your delightful review and for taking the time to post all those fun pictures! I’m really glad your DD had fun with the Limericks. When my 10 year old granddaughter did the book and the lapbook a month or so ago, the limericks was the hardest of all! Luckily, the whole family was visiting and I could help her with it. (6th grade brother overheard and he had no trouble thinking up the silly things . . . rather than work on his own schoolwork. LOL). So it is relief that I saw that an 8 year old like your DD could do it. Just depends on the child, I guess.
Thanks again!
Susan