Well I really did appreciate all of the ideas that you all shared when I asked about horse activities for the kids in my homeschool group. I ended up finding someone else who did activities with the preschoolers and then I decided to try a lapbook with the elementary age kids. Now, I'm no Jaminacema, but I do have to say that she inspired me to just jump in and give it a try. We had about 30 kids there and it seemed to work out really well. Everybody had a file folder, crayons, scissors, and glue sticks and we just got to work!

I got the idea for the cover from this website. I like how they had the picture covering the whole front, but only glued it on one side so you don't have to cut through it! A friend had loaned me her copy of  My First Unit Study: Horses by Sarah Julicher and I got the coloring page for the front from there. I also used a crossword puzzle and the horse anatomy picture from there too. It was a pretty helpful book.


Then I ordered the Hands of A Child Horses Project Pack. I really loved the information in the front of the book. It really helped me get my thoughts together and provided key information, but I didn't actually use many of their activities.

I only had a little over an hour for the kids to work on their lapbooks so my main purpose was just to give them some information that they could take home and share with their parents. Most of the activities from Hands of a Child are really just blank templates that you have the kids write or color in.

I ended up with 6 different items for the kids to put inside their folders. In the center was a diagram of Parts of a Pony with parts labeled and a book on How to Describe a Horse. On the left was a minibook from HOAC on The Five Most Well-Known Breeds and then a list of vocabulary words that I typed up. (I grew up thinking that a pony was a baby horse so I KNEW I wanted to clear that up!) And then on the right side was a minibook on Horse Gaits and another on What Horses Eat. You'll see more pictures below.



The kids had a really fun time putting these together. I had the pages cut out and stabled together for the Breeds & Description books just to save time.

Inside the Breed book, I had put pictures of each breed on its page and then the kids just wrote the names of the breed on there.





Here are the pages inside the Describing A Horse Minibook in the middle.

I just copied this page and cut it in half to make it fit.

Then I cut & pasted some text from this page to explain how horses are measured by hands.

Next I included a page on Head & Face Markings for horses.

And then put the Leg Markings on a separate page.

Here's a picture of the inside of the Horse Gait Minibook from HomeschoolShare.

And this is *supposed* to be the Horse Diet accordion book (also from HomeschoolShare), but I had trouble with folding it just right and decided to just use it as-is.

There was a lot more of course that could have gone in there - I liked this info on Horse Body Language and these horse treat and fly repellent recipes from Wild Heart Ranch.  And I really can't say enough good things about Homeschool Share if you're looking for free unit study resources. I got a lot of ideas from their Mrs. Mack Unit Study.

And then we finished up with a visit from our very own horse Billy. After working on their lapbooks the kids could have identified his breed, his markings, how tall he was, why he is a gelding, and what type of food he likes to eat. They *could* have. Instead we talked some about horse etiquette and how you take good care of them. Explained that even though they are big & strong animals that they are prey animals and can be easily startled. Looked at the differences between English & Western saddles and learned more about hooves and manes. The kids all seemed to enjoy it and then Billy really enjoyed when they each came up to pet him and gave him a little apple treat.