What is Lapbooking?

I got an email from someone wanting to know about lapbooking. So here are my thoughts on lapbooking. If you go to this squidoo page you will see pictures and links to different lapbooks. I love to go back to this site often to give me more ideas.

Basically lapbooking is a crafty way to do school work. Instead of the monotonous worksheets they can make little books and other paper crafts to show what you have learned. You use a file folder to put all your little creations on one place. Then your child has this folder as a study method or an easy way to review things learned. The picture shows a lapbook the boys did on Marco Polo.

Then there are these other links that you can go to learn more about lapbooking.

http://lapbooklessons.ning.com/
http://www.homeschoolhelperonline.com/lapbooks.htm

There is not only lapbook but also notebooking. I like notebooking just as much as I do lapbooking but notebooking is faster to do than lapbooking. Notebooking is more like a one or two page worksheet without the work. hehehe I have made several notebooking pages that we have used from topics like Benjamin Franklin to nature pages. Here is a link about a 50 states notebook.

These two forms of learning are great for younger kids, those with learning disabilities and for the creative kids. This is because they don't do too much writing but enough to not get them tired and frustrated like with a worksheet. Then they have something nice with pictures or drawings that can be kept and looked over and enjoyed for many years.

We are working on a lapbook about Christopher Columbus right now that was a freebie from Hands of a Child. Hands of a Child is an online store that you can buy these lapbooks ready made and download them directly to your computer. You then print them out and do them. The work is all done for you. You don't have to make the projects all you do is print them out and have the kids work on them. They also have a quarterly freebie and right now it is one about Thomas Alva Edison. Dec. 16th will be the last day you can download it free. There is also Currclick that will have a freebie every week and sometimes they are lapbooks.

I hope this answers some lapbooking questions.