Lapbooking

Lapbooking is a fun way to get your children involved in the subjects they are learning.  Lapbooks can be used in many different subjects including Language Arts, Math, Science, Social studies, and more.  Lapbooks can be simple enough to complete in one day to go along with a mini unit study or they can be a resource that you use all year.  



We just had to do an owl lapbook while following Molly last year!



We have done lapbooks about sports, sound, holidays, the Bible, phonics, and many more.    They are a great tool to look back on and review or just for fun to see what you have learned!

Lapbooks are a good learning tool for any age.  There is a lot of flexibility in lapbooking, making it very easy to adapt to your child’s grade level.   If you have children on different grade levels, lapbooks are a great way to bring them together.  Many lapbooks are flexible enough to do together as a family!

When I am putting together a new lapbook, most of the time I just Google the subject I am looking for, such as “Owl Lapbook”.   However, these are a few of my favorite lapbooking resource websites…

Homeschool Share Share your ideas and use others’ resources for lapbooking, unit studies and more!

Live and Learn Press This website has many different premade lapbooks for sale and they even have a few good freebies!  I have used several of their lapbooks and love their Apologia products!

Squidoo Great ideas and getting started tips.

Lapbook Lessons Fun lapbook ideas and they are always adding new stuff!

Lapbooks can be as simple or as complex as you want them to be.  My advice is to start small with a lapbook that you find online and work your way up from there.  If you try to do too much at first, it is easy to get overwhelmed at all of the possibilities!  There are many pre-made lapbooks available for purchase or free online, you can also design your own…the options are limitless!  The most important thing is that you and your children have fun with them!

A good place to start…

The All About Me lapbook is a great first lapbook…it is fairly simple in technique and does not take much time at all.  At the beginning of every year each of my boys make an All About Me lapbook.  I got the idea from Live and Learn Press.  They have many different lapbook products to choose from, including some free!

The All About Me lapbook is a great way to document your children’s growth each year.  Each of my boys make a new lapbook every January and it is fun to look back on previous years to see how they have changed.

You can download the All About Me lapbook template and instructions for free here.  To get started you will need a manilla folder, gluestick, scissors, crayons, pencils and anything else you might want to use to complete and decorate your lapbook.  On the All About Me lapbook, I have the boys put their handprints on the cover.  I use tempura paint for that.

Remember…start small and have fun!

Heidi, a contributing author here at Habits for a Happy Home, is a homeschooling mom to three boys, ages 7, 5 and 3. Find her sharing a mixture of couponing, cost savings strategies and more on her blog, Heidi’s Miscellany.