Homeschool Lap Books

With just about 2 weeks until school starts up again I can honestly say that I am totally psyched about this coming year. I guess other moms are starting to get revved up about this year because in the last couple of days I've had a few people ask me about LAP BOOKS.

If you know me you will know that LAP BOOKS are right up my alley - they are crafty-scrapbook like-compilations of everything we studied about a certain subject. For me I have found it easiest to have a general idea of how I want to do the Lap Book BEFORE we start the unit but then wait until the end of the unit to design and put the whole thing together. Right now, since the kids are young I play a pretty heavy hand in the design of the Lap Book; I suppose that as the kids get older they will want to take it on themselves. (Eden suggested that at the end of High School we could do a Lap Book about the Lap Books we did!) Now - some people like to do all of the leg work (cutting, pasting etc) for their Lap Books before the year even begins - this is a great idea, but for me I find that my creative juices flow best as we are learning about the subject. Check out Dawnelle's post on Lap Books - she is a "planner-aheader" - pretty awesome! For more info on Lap Books check out the Lap Ladies.

So - here are some examples of Lap Books that we did this past year.

SPACE

Cover - file folder covered with scrapbook paper.

Sewed in page protectors with 1 or 2 samples of the kids work. One of our highlights was writing "Alien News", a newspaper for aliens and by aliens! To the left the item in the top corned folds out (like an accordian) to show the life cycle of a star. Bottom left is a poem Eden wrote. To the right are questions about space - I had Eden do this as a "test" - if you flip the question up she wrote her answer underneath.

"Case files" - wrote out all the experiements that we did during the unit. (I'm big on experiments and hands on science).

Samples of each of the kids work.

PLANTS

I discovered PRE-PRINTED file folders - no decorating necessary!

Experiments listed on the left,

definitions on the right (lift the green flap).

Inside - velcro game about parts of the plant that we eat, folder on left for "Plant Growth Observation" Booklette, picture of our celery experiment, pot with a poem in it, envelope for seeds we dried.

I sewed in a plastic page protector (easier than it sounds) that was made to hold baseball cards - it wa perfect for the photos we took (daily) of our tree as winter turned in to spring.

FIVE SENSES

Can you tell who is who by the eyes, nose, ears and mouth? I'll give you a hint: "If it's gross, goey, or dirty it is Justin!" Listed on the left and right are books we read; in the center are Bible verses we read about the different senses.

I scanned in some of the kids art work and poems, shrunk them and reprinted them.

OK - that's it - if you want to know more pop me an email. Lap Books are fun - they help reinforce what we've learned - and they remind us of all that we did. Hope you have as much fun with this as we do!