New Ventures in Homeschooling - Lapbooks!

I've been teaching my children at home for 17 years - YIKES!! We basically have a relaxed and eclectic approach. I like a little bit of Classical Education, a little bit of Charlotte Mason, some workbooks, and some days, even some unschooling (:::gasp:::). My friend, who has been homeschooling for about the same number of years told me about the lapbooks she is doing with her children. I listened thinking, "that's cool". Then I started doing google searches and youtube searches on lapbooking. I immediately began to see how lapbooking could easily compliment our schooling and would give the children something that has been missing - more hands-on, crafty-type activities.

To make a lapbook, you simply take a plain folder (legal or letter size) and decorate it with "mini-books" that are filled with information on the subject of interest. Our first lapbook was on the scientist, Archimedes. We read the book, Archimedes and the Door of Science and kept notes as we read. From these notes, we were able to categorize them into groups which formed the mini-books.

Front of lapbook

This is 2 legal-size folders glued together and refolded to create a lapbook.

Accordian book

Page with several "mini-books"

Another kind of mini-book with flip pages.

This is the back (oops, should have closed the left flap). I like the idea of taking the boys' pictures to put on the back of their project. They will be able to see exactly what they looked like when they did the project.

The boys love this. They love using their creativity. They love to use Mommie's scrapbooking supplies that have been sitting and collecting dust. They love to share what they learned as they read from their mini-books. This is a very great tool for retaining information because they had to write info, craft it into a mini-book, and every time they look at the mini-book, they will have the opportunity to reread the information again.

Oh, and I like that these are all uniform in size and will be able to store very easily. Well, now you're up to date on our latest homeschooling venture.