THANK YOU to all of you who commented on my last post on lapbooking. Some of you that have not yet had the oppoturnity to try lapbooking had a few questions, so I thought I would try to address them here....
1. It sounds complicated! I felt that way to when I first heard of Lapbooking too; but really with the right tools, you too can amaze and astonish your children and friends. :)
Some of my favorite tools are:
- Dinah Zike's Big Book of Books (I have this one, it taught me all the folds I used in our lapbook and more).
- The Ultimate Lap Book Handbook (on my wish-list)
- Tammy teaches Lap Books dvd, by Tammy Duby of Tobin's Lab (I highly recommend this dvd! It will inspire & teach you about lapbooking - well worth the money as you will watch it over & over. Between my lapbook & showing this dvd to our Co-op, our group really got turned on to Lapbooking - so much so that at our last Arts & Academics Fair, I don't think there was a single table without at least one Lapbook. :)
Note: I have a few Lapbook sites you can view on my sidebar and I think I will be adding a special Lapbook section this week. The word "Lapbook" is a trademark from Tammy Duby of Tobin's Lab, the origianl creator of this form of "doing something with what you've learned". You can also find similar projects under various names, like portfolios, sutter books, pocket books, scrap folders, graphic organizers, desktop projects, etc.. Practically anything you find that is for notebooking or scrapbooking, can be adapted for Lapbooking - and visa versa.
2. How long does it take? That depends entirely up to you and what you are doing? With younger children, like with everything else, they will need more help; and depending on the child, if they are a meticulous, perfectionist, they will be slower - whereas others may just hurry through it. You may have to remind the child that they should always do their best work. It does take some mommy prep time to decide what the child will be doing and how you want it to look. Perhaps some pre-cutting or folding or buying of cardstock and embelishments. I do recommend to just do one, or at the very most two Lapbooks at a time - not a Lapbook for every subject. Also, narrow the subject matter so you can reach closure. Perhaps do a Lapbook on Chocolate (not on all food), or a Lapbook on the Revolutionary War (not on "American History"). It is better to do several smaller Lapbooks than one huge Lapbook that never ends. Each project (insert to Lapbook) is done as you go, perhaps taking a half-hour or less. You save up these projects and then at the end of your study (when you are "done" studying chocolate or the American Revolution, etc. - then, and only then, is when you decide where/how you will glue in your projects in the Lapbook. Then is when you take it all out to the garage or yard and use the spray adhesive. Things go very quickly in this stage. But make sure, if you are going to do this and display it for a fair or something, that you get it done in advance so you can air them out from the glue or paint odors.
Each child has their own 2 gallon ziplock bag to store their projects in with their name on the bag.
Cut a little hole in each bag and hang them on a 3M hook high in your classroom closet for safe keeping.
3. Explain the order that it is done. Yes, we are not doing projects for project's sake. This is mostly to aid in retention of learning - to "do something with what you have (already) learnt" - a pillar in the Heart of Wisdom Teaching Approach. If you are using a book that has comprehension questions at the end of each chapter or unit, that makes it easy to decide on what to Lapbook about. For example, when we were going through the Astonomy book, we took 4 days to read through a chapter, commenting as we went. Then on the 5th day, at the end of the chapter & week, instead of drilling the girls on the comprehension questions (which hits the highlights of the chapter and gave the answers in the back), I would use them to help me determine what kind of Lapbook project we would do. They had already gone over the material, so this was just reinforcing what they knew. We would then add any vocabulary words from that chapter to the on-going vocabulary book; I would have them copy down what I had written on the white board of facts about, say "Mars", for that week's study for their layered look book. By the way, always have the child do the writing/copy work - they will get more out of it and take more pride in it if they do it themselves - not moms. Also as a side note, use cardstock instead of construction paper. Construction paper fades & tears.
4. Lapbooking may not be for everyone! Anyone can do a Lapbook, but for some, this may not be their highest and best way of retaining information. I recommend that everyone try it, but if your child is one that gets too invovled in getting the project/craft part just right and is clueless on the material inside; or if your child is a strictly "bottom line" kind of person, they may not appreciate Lapbooking to Learn.
Whatever you study, make sure you "do something with what you learn" to help your child retain the material; but it's up to you, your child, and God of course, on how you do that. Figure out your child's learning style and bent and run with it. For they are fearfully and wonderfully made!!!
May God Bless you as you seek His Will in training and teaching your child(ren)! |
