I posted a few days ago about my desire to use notebooking in our school lessons, but it’s just so difficult for the boys to do the writing required. I know that will come in time, even for my special needs child, he IS making progress. He’s just not THERE, yet. I am revisiting the idea of lapbooking, spurred by a commenter who was asking what the difference is. I had replied to him that I really don’t have time to do all of the crafty stuff for lapbooks. Then I started thinking about it.
I realized that if I cut all the parts out ahead of time, then just incorporated that mini book or item on the day that we cover the material, it really wouldn’t be that hard. I have done ONE lapbook, with D1, when he was in first grade. I created a lapbook while we read Who Took the Farmer’s Hat? It turned out really nice (although I thought a bit bare) but it was SO.MUCH.WORK. I had to make up all of the mini books and the cover myself. My son was so young, and couldn’t write much of anything at that point. I couldn’t have him cut anything out because he didn’t have the fine motor to even attempt a straight line with scissors at that point. But now things have changed, the boys are older and more capable, and with a bit of advanced planning I think I can do this.
They will still have to write to fill out the mini books and flaps and all of that. They just won’t have to come up with a whole bunch of thought and ideas and complete sentences to boot. This morning I spent some time over at Homeschool Share, looking over the lapbooks they have for download there. I was looking specifically for the topics of Salamanders and Ancient Egypt. Homeschool Share has SO MANY lapbooks and unit studies you can use for free, it’s simply amazing!
I downloaded all the pages for an Egypt Unit, which includes Moses and the Exodus. I found a unit on Chickens (complete with photos of the completed lapbook) and an All About Me lapbook unit that looks like a LOT of fun too! I plan on using both of these in the near future as well. (I’ll post when we do the Chickens one– it should be fun. We have friends with chickens!) And for those of you who are looking for even more lapbooks or unit study ideas, here’s the Homeschool Share Master List of Lapbooks.
Happy Homeschooling!
Homeschool Share rocks! I love to download stuff from there. We do lap-and-note, which basically combines lapbooking w/ notebooking. All our pages are on 8 1/2 x 11 cardstock and placed in a binder. So a page might have a mini-book and a small naration written. I have one who still struggles w/ writing so she dictates or draws many of her responses. Glad you’re giving it a second-try!
Go for it! Mine really love lapbooks (even now and they are much older!).
When they were young I kept a box that I filled with cut out shapes, and mini books that I/we made as I had time. And lots of colored blank stickers that we could write on. Then it was easy to just pull different books out and make a lapbook from them.
When they couldn’t write very easily they would often draw a picture to show their answer (LOL! My son still does that!).
Good luck – and hope you have fun!
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