Posted in Lapbooks

Here are my notes (altered somewhat for this blog post) from the Lapbook Workshop I did for our local HS group last week.

Disclaimer: I do not work for In the Hands of a Child, nor do I benefit personally from promoting them here. (I just love their stuff!)

We used a ClassPack (provided by In the Hands of a Child) which included 16 activities that we worked on together after I presented the following overview:

What is a Lapbook?          
Tamy Duby (of Tobins Lab)is the person who came up with the term Lapbook. She is author of The Ultimate Lapbook Handbook and the video Tammy Teaches Lapbooks which was shown at October's meeting and is now available in our childrens library. (I highly recommend this video and also the cd rom which have tons of examples of lapbooks made by real students.)

A Lapbook is basically a file folder, folded in a new way. Some people call them Portfolders, Project Packs, Shutter Books or Flap Books. Its just a creative way to organize & display information using file folders & “minit books” (which are miniature books in neat shapes) made popular by author Dinah Zike. She has written TONS of great resources for teachers, one of her MOST popular being the Big Book of Books and Activities.

I have a handout available here (email me if you’d like a copy of it.) It lists some of the resources I mention here plus tons of websites. I highly recommend the Lapbooking Group at Yahoo and also the Notebooking Group is good (many people on the Notebooking list use both lapbooking and notebooking).

Some people say that lapbooking is for younger children and notebooking is for older children, but I’ve seen lapbooks done by children 3-17 yrs. old. Obviously the little ones will need ALOT more help. My oldest still at home is 6 and honestly I do most of the work for our lapbooks. My husband has said “Is that YOUR lapbook or THEIRS?” ;0   I like to call it MODELING… They learn HOW to learn from watching me.

They ARE learning  a lot!!  What I mean when I say I do most of the work:

is that I usually write out their narrations and put them into the shape books. They may do a very short copywork lesson for the Lapbook. I will type out the vocab words and definitions separately and let them match up correct answers, then cut and paste into a vocab book.  I even do most of the cutting if this is going to frustrate them.

The KEY is to make it EASY and FUN at first so that they will ENJOY it. You want to help them be successful.

Then you will start to see the love of learning take off, which is just one of the benefits of making Lapbooks with your children.

WHY Lapbook?        What are the BENEFITS?

• For children of all ages, all learning styles and all abilities. You can truly use this method to MEET your child RIGHT where they are.
• Use with ALL curriculum & approaches, whether its classical, Charlotte Mason, especially unit studies and even with textbooks. Great for 4-H, Scouts, or other interest-led studies or hobbies.
• Children practice essential skills without even realizing it: including fine motor skills (coloring/ cutting/ drawing) research, composition, organization, and logic.
• Gives your child a PURPOSE for writing: Its FUN to write in the little shape books!
• It lets them know their work is important enough to keep and share with others.  This encourages neatness!
• The REVIEW is a BIG bonus for me. Children love to show off their hard work and lapbooks are easy to take to grandma’s house or a friends. Each time your child shows his lapbook to someone he will look over all of the little books and review what was learned.
• And last, if not BEST of all – lapbooks are easily stored away in a drawer or on a bookshelf!!

OK, the BIG question?  HOW do you make a lapbook??

I literally spent months researching before I ever attempted to make one! ;0  The main reason I wanted to offer this workshop is so you wont have to do that!

My GOAL is that when you leave here tonight you will know how to make a lapbook and feel confident to use this method at home with your own children.

There are several steps to making a lapbook. Im not going into all the details just now, but I will say that the most important step is to BEGIN

Other steps include:

1)     Choose a topic

2)     Plan your study

3)     Research, Collect & Organize information

4)     Present it in a creative way

After all of my months of research, the BEST advice I heard was this: 

Just Do it!! This is so true- once you start DOing you’ll see how it all works out and you’ll learn SO much more than just reading about it!

If you were AT the workshop … I would be giving you a flyer and saying  “Let me introduce you to In the Hands of a Child…  ;)

 They’ve provided all of the materials we’ll be using tonight, which is a SMALL sampling of the activities they offer in their lapbook packs. Be sure to look over the product list I have here or visit their website!”

If you didn’t make it to the workshop, just visit their website and you can see everything they have to offer. (IF you decide to order something from them, would you please give them code #133 (our homeschool group will get a bonus to apply to our library purchase).

The thing I LOVE about Hands of a Child is that they make it SO easy for you to just jump right in and BEGIN your lapbook. These are PERFECT for doing your first lapbook. Everything is all laid out for you- right down to the lesson plans.

**Project Packs even have the research info included right in the text! This makes it especially easy for younger ones and saves you more TIME!

**Research Packs are for older children who are able to “do the research” themselves (or with a little help).

They also have all of the graphics & booklets pre-printed for you and there is even a sample lapbook layout to guide you through that step. 

So, you don’t even NEED to be creative at all!  BUT, if you are- that’s great too!  I tend to use the Project Packs and mix in my own creations (and dc artwork), but I like that I don’t have to add anything if I don’t want to! 

If you look at our Space Lapbook you can see how we used some of a HandsofaChild project pack, some booklets from Great Science Adventures, and one from Considering God's Creation along with other  things  too.

If you have never done a lapbook, I recommend you try out a Hands of a Child project packs, they have tons of topics to choose from and even offer FREEBIES regularly on their website. So, what are you waiting for?!  

            Here are the 16 activities we made: