After reading Eric Carle’s The Hungry Caterpillar and discussing Collage Art we painted the folder, cut shapes from construction paper to be flowers and stems.
We printed the My Symmetrical Butterfly from http://www.homeschoolshare.com/butterfly_lapbook.php on cardstock and creased the butterfly down the center, upon unfolding the butterfly and using a much thicker type of paint, painted the body and ½ the butterfly’s wings before carefully refolding the butterfly and pressing firmly. Peel open and let dry, cut-out, and attach to collage.
Pages 5 and 6
Matching game form www.preschoolprintables.com– the way we played, as he was a bit older, was more of a Memory game.
All the pieces are in the envelope (printed on cardstock and cutout) with the addition of blank cardstock “squares” which we used to cover the butterflies on the folder.The cutout butterflies were placed face down on the floor and we took turns turning over one butterfly and uncovering one folder butterfly in attempts to acquire a match.
Books We Read:
How to Hide a Butterfly & other Insects by Ruth Heller
Waiting for Wings by Lois Ehlert
Born to be a Butterfly by Karen Wallace
Know It Alls Butterflies! by Darlene Freeman
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
Butterflies Animal World by Donna Baily
Miss Emma’s Wild Garden by Anna Grossnickle Hines
Crinkleroot’s Guide to Knowing Butterflies & Moths by Jim Arnosky
Take two folders and place one file folder inside the other
Take the 3rd and cut it so the bottom expanding sections act as an attachment and place on the outside of the first 2 (so short side is on front of book and the full page is an extra page at the end of the book).Save the leftover piece to make a lift-up page later.
Open and staple in the middle, close book and glue/tape the front flap to the front of the file book
Exoskeleton book: we copied a picture from the encyclopedia that showed a grasshopper and it’s old exoskeleton then described the picture on the inside and pasted the definition from http://dictionary.reference.com
http://www.kizclub.com/craft/insectsbox.pdfI printed the bugs only on cardstock than colored and cut them out – gave DS a bug net and threw the bugs in the air until he caught them then “mounted” them to his lapbook (winter alternative to outdoor bug hunt)
Match a Ladybug pocket: Numerals to Dot Patterns on Ladybug Cards (My creation printed on red paper)
Lift up page (leftover from the page added to the back of the book):
Ladybug Clock on top, add brad before pasting Ladybug Lore on bottom of lift-up page so it covers the brad. I printed the clock twice: once on cardstock for the hands and once on red colored paper for the clock part.http://www.vickiblackwell.com/ladybugclock.pdf
1 and ½ Manila File Folders, packing tape, 1 brad, stapler and staples,
paper, crayons, pencils/pens, photocopier for 1 thing (other ideas at end if need to replace)
Directions: Fold 1 manila file folder in the shutter fold method. Cut a second folder along the expansion lines; so that a small edge can fold over the left side of whole folder and tape down --forming a 2nd and 3rd page out of the back of the whole folder and front of the ½ folder (see photos).
I wrote Job 40:15 in pen on the picture and he colored it – glue finished picture to half of the shutter to facilitate cutting it in half before gluing second side.
Center page bottom – after reading Danny and the Dinosaur by Syd Hoff we wrote our own story (you can use my story paper)
Right shutter: After reading Dinosaur Days by Linda Manning, I photocopied the back page with the dinosaur silhouettes/definitions/days and made a “flip” book with the definitions inside. He had to look through the book then match the cut-out silhouettes and the day names to each page, thus putting them in order.We glued the pieces down, then he would check (still with the book) if he had the days of the week in order (relative to the book) and we reviewed the type of dinosaur.
Back of shutter folded folder (2nd page)
Can a dinosaur fit in our house?
http://www.nutritionexplorations.org/educators/lessons/chef-combo/chef-act-measuringdino.aspI made 2 copies of the cards – 1 of cardstock that had the yarn wrapped around it, which we used to see how big dinosaurs really were. 1 on plan paper which we made into the book you see in the lapbook.For each page we wrote if the dinosaur fit in our house and what rooms it would take up
3rd Page (the ½ of folder that was taped on)
Did dinosaurs go on the ark? Then why are they extinct?
On top of the wheel we cut out the picture from www.AnswersMagazine.com leaving a large enough left hand margin to fold over forming a glue flap – allowing the picture to hide the wheel but act as a large lift-able flap.http://www.answersingenesis.org/kids/activities click on “Dinosaur Coloring” activity #10 currently
Extras: www.learningpage.com has a whole section on the 5 Senses under “Basic Sheets” suitable for this age group.At time of posting it is free to be a member of www.learningpage.com
Fold 1st manila folder as shown in picture, label with marker “Left” and “Right” arrows, and write title with child’s name.
Second folder – along the expansion lines, fold over to make the whole folder smaller, staple. Cover rough staples with packing tape.Then fold identical to 1st folder. 2nd folder should now fit inside 1st and can be stapled inside to function as a lift-up (see photo).
Print out all the entries and cut them out.Depending on the age of the child, it may be necessary to glue down half the entries – so they only have to match.If the child is very young, only give them the cards to match the page they are on, when they’ve completed those, and then give them the next set to match.Help the child glue the match on so that it can still be lifted to see the opposite underneath.
“The Shape of Things”A lapbook suitable for K4 – 1st grade.
Need: 3 manila file folders, construction paper, glue, printouts, and stapler
Optional: crayons or markers to color
Assemble the lapbook by cutting one folder in half and set aside.Place the remaining two folders together (one inside the other) to form a 4 page book, add one half of remaining folder for additional page to the back, then staple along the left side to assemble.Use ½ of the remaining piece of folder as a pocket for page 8.
Cover – write The Shape of Things by Child’s Name
decorate with stop sign and butterfly from my file: Cutouts-1 and bird
Cover: Coloring page 
Pages 1 and 2
Pages 3 and 4
Pages 5 and 6
Cover: Color by Number (Dover Sample) 
Inside Left Page
Page 3: Ant
Eric Carle’s The Grouchy Ladybug layer book
Bee
Spider
Cover: He drew a whale and colored the ocean floor – can’t find where I got the picture from; but it would be real simple to draw something similar
Inside shutter folded folder and on lift-up flap all printouts come from Homeschool Share: 
