WHAT IS A LAPBOOK?

January 18, 2014 by stephany

Lapbooks are great for all ages and if you are not incorporating these into your kids studies you may want to consider it. I have been doing lapbooks with the girls because they are both very visual, hands-on learners. Lapbooks are great for any project for school or even church projects.

If you are interested in incorporating lapbooks into your activites you can find all different ways to do them. I keep it simple and fun for the girls, including them in it as much as possible. I let my {almost Kinder} help pick out the materials and pick out some ideas off several different sites that we like to use. She can cut, paste, and pretty much put it together by herself with me sitting with her to encourage her along. My fifth grader mostly does hers by herself. Most of the time I just give her the topic and let her do all her own research and let her assemble her own lap book (she will ask along the way how it looks). She also gets great projects in all her subjects through {AOP Monarch} her online curriculum.

5th Grade Science Project: Water Cycle, Carbon Cycle and
Chemical Cycle

*Pictures found and printed from the internet and then she did her own drawing of the cycles.

Card stock added for extra space

Ok, so it sounds great right! So how do you Make A Lapbook?

You will need a few supplies:

Manilla folders (I do colored to make it more fun)
scissors
crayons or markers
glue stick
Heavy duty tape and regular
Index cards
If printing your own materials for your project from other sites (warning: you will find a ton of stuff) you will need copy paper or card stock. I like to use card stock!
You can also use cut outs from magazines
I also keep on hand colored envelopes to use for pockets inside the lapbook (you can make your own pockets)

So here we go….

So first you open your folder and crease both side flaps down to the middle crease.
Layout all your materials you have found to put in your lapbook (do not paste anything down, you may need to adjust first to make it all fit)
Once everything is where it fits and flows (keeping material in order such as a timeline) then you can begin to paste.
I make pockets (using the envelopes) for anything that does not need to be glued down (like game pieces)
You can crease more folders and keep adding if you need more space (add glue and start pasting to the flap)

Fold left side flap to the middle

Fold the right flap to the middle (the flaps should meet)

Fill up your lapbook and let the learning and fun begin!

Any questions? Please leave a comment!

Check back next week to see our finished Valentine Lapbooks! That is the great thing I love about them, you can work on them daily and just keep adding to them as you find more materials.

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Blessings,

Stephany Dedman