By Rachel Larkin
Are your children becoming bored with homeschooling? Do some subjects seem too hard to teach? Are you ready to give up?
If you are feeling like the passion to learn has left your home, can I suggest that you try lapbooking? I stumbled across lapbooking a year or so ago and it has made such a difference in the level of fun and excitement of learning in our home. At first I didn’t think that my three boys (aged 8, 10 and 11) would be interested in lapbooking but I was pleasantly surprised, they LOVE it! I laughed the other day when my 10 year old was asked by the dentist while he was having his teeth polished, “What is the best thing about homeschooling?” David quickly replied “Lapbooking!” Of course the dentist had absolutely no idea what lapbooking is. I was just so glad that he didn’t say “lunch time”. David’s reply to the dentist confirmed that I was on the right track for presenting learning in a fun way.
What is lapbooking?
A lapbook is a file folder, filled with information on a topic which is laid out in a creative way and fits in a child’s lap. It’s the “creative way” part that brings the information alive to the child. The lapbook could be filled with a collection of mini-books, flaps, folded display material, drawings, stories, graphics, timelines, diagrams or any written work that your child has done on that topic of study.
What can the lapbook be about?
Anything! any subject , topic, unity study or book. I started lapbooking with science topics first, mainly because I wasn’t very confident in teaching science and it looked like a great way of having fun with a difficult subject. Our first lapbook was on The Senses. This is a great topic to study with younger children. I found different worksheets and mini books online along the lines of my topic. I took photos of the children’s noses, hands, ears and tongues (but not their eyes!) and we glued these onto the mini books. We researched the library on our topic and watched videos about the five senses. It was just like doing a unit study or project except we had a structure of how to present the information that we learned – inside a file folder.
The most recent completed lapbook was also a science related topic – Rocks and Minerals Lapbook. This was a downloaded free ebook from a yahoo group that I belong to. It involved less preparation from me because the boys were older and could do more research themselves plus all the templates for the mini books and scope of the study was already set out for me.
Other lapbook ideas:
- My Grandad Project: Shaun interviewed his great grandad with a series of questions and then filled in the mini books with the answers.
- Current Events: Beijing 2008, Election 2008
- A Country lapbook
- Composer or Artist lapbook
- Literature: you can use a read aloud book as the basis of your lapbook. Little House on the Prairie is extremely suited for this and you can find many free lapbook resources to help you. We did a lapbook on “The Thieves of Ostia”, part of The Roman Mysteries Series. We branched off into studying Pompeii and Roman Times.
Lapbooking has so many benefits. It improves retention of materials learned and reinforces topics because every time they get out their lapbook and show someone they are retelling what they have learned. It happens very naturally. Lapbooking helps reluctant writers. They don’t seem to mind writing when it is in a mini book and then placed into a file folder. It doesn’t seem to be too hard for them because the writing is done in short bursts. It helps some demanding subjects to become more enjoyable. Lapbooking is a great evaluation tool to see what they have really learned. It encourages children to “dig” for the information. It is great for those kids who need “hands on” learning.
It is so inexpensive that it is within the budget of every homeschooling family. The main supplies needed are file folders, scissors, glue, double sided tape, paper, coloured paper, card, crayons, pencils, markers, stapler, computer / internet for images and downloading templates.
There are many skills that are learned while lapbooking- cutting and pasting, copying, researching, display and design, outlining, note taking, computer skills, sequencing, categorizing, comparing and contrasting and writing. The best benefit in our family was how it gave my boys a reason and a purpose to write.
How do you get started?
There are two options either you can create your own, like how I did with The Five Senses or you can search online for lapbooks on your topic ready for you to download , print out and use. Ready made lapbook kits can be purchased and come in a pdf format. There are many ready made lapbooks that you can also download for free.
Option One: Ready Made Lapbooks
There are many ready made lapbooks online, some are for free and others you can purchase. I have been able to download all our lapbooks for free through joining different lapbook-selling websites. To find websites where you can join these newsletters, type in lapbooking into google.
Option Two: The 7 Step Process to Creating Your Own Lapbook
- Choose your topic. This could be from a science textbook or reference book or from a period in history that you are currently reading about. Ask your children what they would be interested in studying. Keep the topic very focused and narrow. Don’t try and choose “The Human Body” like I did, narrow it down to “The Five Senses” or “The Heart”. Stay flexible and be prepared to go off into tangents according to the children’s interest.
- Gather your information. A good idea is to try and answer the Who, What, Where, When, Why and How questions. Maybe do a mini book on each question. This is a great opportunity to get the children involved. Get them digging into the reference books or library shelves. Get them to find images online that they can add to their lapbooks. As you research take note on any vocabulary words that you can put into a mini book.
- Look up the template websites and choose mini books that go with your information.
- You can also google lapbook “your topic” and you may find a kind homeschooling mother who has done all the hard work and has a template available for you to use.
- Complete one minibook at each session
- Put all completed minibooks into a plastic bag and leave it until you have exhausted your information or the interest of the children starts to wane. If you have too much information for the basic manila folder remember that you can add more flaps.
- Design the cover using Word or Publisher and stick all your minibooks inside.
- Show and Tell – Invite your grandparents and other homeschooled families over for a show and tell!
The most important thing to remember is that lapbooking is just a tool for learning. I believe the most important part of learning is the process and not the final product. Don’t be tempted to take over and “tidy” up your child’s lapbooks. Let them do their best work but don’t set expectations of a perfect product. Enjoy the process of learning as you discover the information on a topic. Keep it fun and learning will occur as they create their lapbooks, you never know you may catch the bug and start creating your own!
© Rachel Larkin
Rachel teaches her three sons at home in Auckland, New Zealand. She is by nature a clean and tidy person. Fortunately, she also has a great sense of humour.