What is a lapbook?

Have you heard of lapbooks? A Lapbook is a great way for your child to organize your child’s narration. Do you have a writing phobic, perhaps lapbooks can help.

Lapbooks are a place for your to gather your child’s narration as you research a topic, you can work on one or two mini books and then place them into your lap

book as you go. You could also use it as a summary tool, and create after you’ve learned about a topic to see how much they remember as well.

In the end, your child will have wonderful work of art that they can look back on as they grow up. My son loves looking at his old work and won’t allow me to get rid of any of his work.

How to Make a Lapbook?

File folder – you need a nice colored file folder. You open it up and then fold in both sides half way so that it opens like window shutters. This way allows you to place mini books both on the inside and outside of your file folder.

Mini books – these are paper templates that you cut out that create little booklets for your child to fill in. These can be as simple as a piece of paper folded in half or as intricate as accordion books or wheels. They can be really neat. You can take a look at these free templates to see how each booklet is made or these one here.

Paper – you can print out the mini books onto card stock, construction paper, or colored paper to jazz up your lapbook. I’m cheap and usually just have printer paper on hand. This allows your child to color them in as they like.

Organization – you can allow your child to organize your lapbook anyway you’d like or if you completing one about a book, you could have a mini book about characters, theme, plot, climax, resolution and so on and allow your child to place them in a sequential manner.

Supplies:

file folder
colored or construction paper
glue
scissors

There’s this misconception that lapbooks are very crafty or are too complicated. This only has to be as crafty or complicated as you make it. When my son was younger, I’d print everything out and cut it all out and have it ready to go for him so that all he had to do was fill it in. Now that he’s in middle school, he can research and then cut and paste his own lapbooks without my help. Which is great so that I can work on lapbooks with my younger son.

You can also check out the book: The Ultimate Lap Book Handbook for more info about lapbooks.

To start you off there are some awesomes sites for free lapbook or notebooking pages. You can always start off with free resources to see if you like creating lapbooks and then move onto paid options if you’re into them. Free sites

Lapbook vendors – paid options save you time so that you don’t have to prepare and research topics for your lapbook. They consist of a research guide that your child uses to fill in their lapbooks which saves you the trouble of having to create your own template.

Hands of A Child – check out their freebie section there is always a free lapbook or notepack that is free for download that gets changed every couple of months. They also have a $5 lapbook of the week that they feature. I’m also on their mailing list because they always run a lot of promotions so you know first hand when they have a sale. I don’t like to purchase lapbooks at full price if I can help it
A Journey Through Learning – if you sign up for their newsletter you get a free lapbook, this gives you the chance to see if you like their material or not.
Homeschool in the Woods – their lapbooks are very meaty and contain a lot of great info.
Curr Click – Currclick sells both Hands of a Child and A Journey through Learning lapbooks so I always like to check both sites to see who has the better deal.

You can read the rest of the post in my 5 Day Series Homeschooling with Lapbooks.

Check out the other members of The Homeschool Crew and see with they’re writing for their 5 Day series.

Anne Marie @ Future.Flying.Saucers ~ Christian Worldview 101
Marya @ Suncoast Momma ~ Homeschooling Special Needs
Kym @ Homeschool Coffee Break ~ Ordinary Homeschooling
Lisa @ Farm Fresh Adventures ~ Our Favorite Family Recipes
Dawn @ Double O Farms ~ Helping Your Struggling Learner
Gena @ I Choose Joy! ~ Homeschooling Middle School
Christine @ Our Homeschool Reviews ~ Free and Frugal Homeschooling
DaLynne @ For the Display of His Splendor ~ Diagramming the Proverbs