Our Iditarod lapbook is finished and both Paige and I keep finding ourselves proudly flipping through it. It's amazing how much we learned and how much info you can fit into one of these little beauties. Because we wanted to keep some press releases and story reports we used two file folders, hooked together. This gave us two large flat sections and several smaller flaps to work with.

God's World News happened to send a poster that included a picture perfect for our cover (above).

When you first open the book you see this:

In the top left is a mini pocket book with individual cards for each of the items a musher MUST carry on his/her sled. below that is a thermometer showing 57 degrees below zero, which is how cold it got. In the center top, there are two biography sheets on two of the mushers we followed and below that is a book with a medal naming the winner. (Jeff King broke the record as oldest winner at 50, this year) Inside are lists of the prize money awarded as well as lists/winners of the special prizes.In the top right is a "fan" timeline with important Iditarod dates and below that is a book listing all the checkpoints with info about each. The picture on the far right is the "Red Lantern", an award for stick-to-it-iveness for the last musher in, with the winner and time listed below it.

Here are the various booklets/sheets opened up.

When you open up the next section you see the following:

(The section you just saw is now under the map/vocab words)

On the left is a map of the trail (partially folded). Next to that is a list of vocabulary words. Lift the flaps to see the definitions underneath. In the middle we made a large folder to hold various press releases and news stories. The two squares on the top right are our musher log-sheets, recording times, rest, miles traveled, etc. Bottom left is a checker celebrating after the Red Lantern musher made it in.

This shows the map, one vocab word and one musher sheet unfolded.

Overall this was a great experience and we love having the lapbook to refer back to and review.

I purchased an idea kit from Hands Of A Child which we then adapted to suit our own likes and dislikes. I think we'll definitely be doing more lapbooking in the future.