Oregon Trail Lapbook

By Hands of a Child – Niki McNeil, Kimm Bellotto, Katie Kubesh

 

Recently, my children and I embarked on a study of our country’s westward expansion. I enlisted the help of a friend of mine, Niki McNeil from Hands of a Child, for a fun way to learn about the Oregon Trail. She provided me with a project pack with the reproducible pages already copied onto color paper called a kit pack. Since I was teaching four boys of various ages and abilities, she sent me pages with “type it in” words on the activity pages for my younger boys. And the copies for the older boys were blank for them to fill in the information themselves.

Ms. McNeil also provided me with a teaching guide that provided me with a daily lesson plan for approximately ten days of teaching. It took us closer to two weeks to complete our lapbooks. I am a novice at making lapbooks, and all of the resources that Ms. McNeil provided enabled me to easily create these lapbooks with my boys. I did most of the cutting of the projects due to the fine details of the projects that were provided. My oldest son is 12-years-old, and he could cut his own activities out. My sons, who are 8 and under, needed my assistance with the cutting.

The Oregon Trail Project book also includes the teaching materials for the activities. This made my job so much easier, since I was able to read the section in the teacher’s guide that went along with the daily lessons. Katie Kubesh does most of the research for the project packs for Hands of a Child, and she did an outstanding job on the research for this lapbook. It was informative without being overwhelming.

We enjoyed creating lapbooks for the Oregon Trail that I have ordered four more project packs to complete with my children. I would highly recommend any of the project packs or research packs from Hands of a Child for your lapbooking projects. You can even choose to purchase their template pack and create a lapbook on the topic of your choosing.

If you would like to see more of the items available from Hands of a Child, please CLICK HERE to visit their website. It was recently upgraded, and I love the new look and new features!

Submitted by: Tami Fox of Discount Home School Supplies (www.dhss.com)

December 2007