Eagle Posted March 20, 2014 Share Posted March 20, 2014 I toyed with the idea of lapbooks last year but decided against it as I figured it would be a form of busywork and would require a lot of cutting and fiddling on my part. Fast forward a year -- we put together a few foldables in a notebook for an Olympics unit study and ds LOVED it. We were already doing FIAR and I decided to try adding a lapbook for one of the weeks -- huge success!! In fact, it has made FIAR into something completely different. We have now "rowed" four books with lapbooks added and I can't believe how much more we are getting out of our studies. We tape the lapbook foldables into a notebook, and Ds reads and rereads it for fun. He remembers *everything* we have done this month because he keeps reviewing it on his own. He went from reluctantly printing a short sentence in WWE (with a huge fuss about how printing is no fun) to wanting to print captions everywhere in the notebook. He is excited to work on our lapbooks each day. Ds has asked if we can do lapbooks for science. He is also wanting to start a nature journal (which I wanted to do last year and he had no interest -- I'm now so excited!). What resources have helped you with lapbooks/notebooks? I found homeschoolshare (excellent!). I search for blogs on the topic we are covering and have found a few that use lapbooks. It would be great to have a list of blogs where you can see really good example lapbooks. Can you overdo it by creating books for too many subjects? If you have lots of lapbook projects, do you work on them all each day or do you organize your work to only have one topic a week/day? Is there anything else you can tell me about how lapbooks/notebooks work in your homeschool? Tips on getting started? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mrs Twain Posted March 20, 2014 Share Posted March 20, 2014 I do a lot of lapbooks. Like you, I have noticed that it helps my kids to retain a good amount of the information. Also, it is a good way for them to develop their fine motor skills with cutting. I get most of my lapbooks from Hands of a Child. You have to buy them, but they have a big sale once or twice per year which makes them significantly cheaper. I have found that it is much better to buy the PDF download because you can easily print it out (rather than having to photocopy a printed book). My kids do one lapbook piece per day of one lapbook. For the school year, we usually do three history, once civics, and two science lapbooks, +/- one lapbook of their choosing (usually on animals). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T'smom Posted March 20, 2014 Share Posted March 20, 2014 We have done a few lapbooks in the past that my kids have loved. I just started something new, but it's only been a little over a week so I can't say if it will be a long term success. I bought my kids sketchbooks and we're using them in a notebook/lap booking way. We started with math, we pasted math journal covers on the front and each page has a different concept that they illustrate, for instance my 1st grade ds has a page where he cut out pictures of coins, wrote what they were and how much they were worth and how many made up one dollar. There is a page with perimeter defined and some construction paper rectangles cut out, measured, and their perimeters listed. One with parallel/perpendicular lines defined and examples drawn. We only have a few lessons left in our math program, so I thought this would be a fun way to review concepts that we'd learned. He really likes making a page. Then we started one for history and we're gluing the pieces from the History Pockets into it. My 3 yo has one too. (She does NOT like to be left out) and she has pages for things like shapes, one where I wrote the numbers and she put that number of stickers next to it, one where I wrote big/ little and she pasted pictures that were big and little (I cut them out of a workbook). Like I said, we have not been doing this long enough to say how it is going to work long-term, but we are having a lot of fun with it now! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HS Mom in NC Posted March 20, 2014 Share Posted March 20, 2014 Mine are more of a portfolio of what we did during our unit study. I don't usually download one someone else designed unless I need to add a few things to what I've already got. I've printed this packet for newbies because I'm developing a workshop for how to design your own unit study. Everything listed is included in a lapboook (more complex cutting and folding) or notebook (simple construction) format. This was lat year's Ancient China Unit Study with my then 7 year old. Ancient China Unit Study Story of the World: Ancients (SOTW 1) by Susan Wise Bauer was my “spine†for this unit study. It was the primary source of what content to cover. After reading a passage out loud, I had my child narrate back what she remembered about it. If she got stuck I asked open ended questions for her to answer. I copied down word for word what she said. She then copied what I wrote down as a handwriting assignment. Those were added into the lapbook/notebook.After reading the passage from SOTW1, we read the relevant library books and other activities listed. Ch. 10: The Far East: Ancient China Lei Zu and the Silkworm 66 The Pictograms of Ancient China 70 Farming in Ancient China 73 Ch. 32: China: Writing and the Qin Calligraphy in China 239 Warring States 243 The First Emperor & The Great Wall 244 The First Emperor’s Grave 248 Ch. 33: Confucius China’s Wise Teacher 251 Blackline Maps of World History by Johnson (Now sold as Map Trek by Terri Johnson.) China’s Shang Kingdom 1750BC-500BC pg. 27 Qin Empire of China 500BC-200BC pg. 45 Ancient China Unit Study: Living Books from the Library Easy Section (E) E + Author’s last or only name (Usually only the first part of it.) These are picture/story books in the children’s section of the library. They’re usually meant to be read aloud to preschool-early or possibly mid elementary aged children in some cases. They typically take about 5-10 minutes to read aloud. Others are longer at about 20 min. maximum in rare cases. These were found by using the local library’s online catalogue’s search engine. I typed in “Ancient China,†“China,†“Dragons,†“Kites,†“Silkworms,†“Silk,†â€Tangrams,†“Great Wall of China,†“Chinese Zodiac,†and “Ancient Chinese Inventions.†More books than the ones listed here showed up. These are most of the books I actually checked out and used. E BOUCHARD Dragon New Year by David Bouchard E CASANOVA The Hunter: A Chinese Folktale retold by Mary Cassanova E CHIN China’s Bravest Girl: The Legend of Hua Mu Lan by Charlie Chin E COMPESTINE Crouching Tiger by Ying Chang Compestine E COMPESTINE The Story of Kites by Ying Chang Compestine E CZERNECKI The Cricket’s Cage: A Chinese Folktale retold by Stefan Czernecki E DEMI The Greatest Treasure by Demi E DEMI Kites: Wishes that Fly Up to the Sky by Demi (Directions for making a simple kite in the back.) E DEMI Liang and the Magic Paintbrush by Demi E DEMI The Magic Boat by Demi E DEMI The Stonecutter by Demi E GREENE The Phoenix Fairy by Greene E HONG The Empress and the Silkworm by Lily Toy Hong E LIN Fortune Cookie Fortunes by Grace Lin E LOBEL Ming Lo Moves the Mountain by Arnold Lobel E NIEMAN The Pet Dragon: A Story about Adventure, Friendship, and Chinese Characters by Christoph Nieman (Copy many of the Chinese characters neatly onto a page either in pen or with a paintbrush and ink to be included in a lapbook.) E NOYES Red Butterfly: How a Princess Smuggled the Secret of Silk Out of China by Deborah Noyes E TOMPERT Grandfather Tang’s Story: A Tale told with Tangrams by Ann Tompert (Directions for making tangram art in the back.) E TOMPERT The Jade Horse, The Cricket, and the Peach Stone by Ann Tompert E YOUNG Lon Po Po: A Red Riding Hood Story from China by Ed Young (Caldecott Medal Winner) Children’s Non-fiction section © These are fact books written at an elementary aged level. This section is usually separated from the junior non-fiction section and the adult non-fiction section. Look for the C next to the number. C+ Dewey Decimal Number+ Author’s last name (usually the first part of it) + Year of publication C 595.78 SCHAFFER 1995 Silkworms: Lifecycles Series by Donna Schaffer Junior Fiction Section (JF) These books are for mid or late elementary to about Jr. High aged children. They can be read aloud by an adult or they can be read by the child depending on your child’s needs. They are organized by author’s last name. None were used in this unit study. Junior Non-Fiction Section (J) In larger libraries junior non-fiction and adult non-fiction are in separate areas. In smaller libraries junior non-fiction and adult non-fiction are mixed in together. Look for the J before the number. The adult non-fiction books have no J. They only have the number. The Dewey decimal system organizes these books. Take a look at your copy of the Dewey Decimal system chart and notice how these books related to Ancient China are placed. Dewey Decimal Number + Author’s last name (usually the first part of it) + year of publication J 398.20951 FANG 1995 The Chi-Lin Purse: A Collection of Ancient Chinese Stories retold by Linda Fang J 398.2454 ZHANG 2000 A Time of Dragons by Song Nan Zhang and Hao Yu Zhang (Copy the dragon song on the last page for a poetry/handwriting assignment.) J 394.26 FIESTA 1999 Fiesta! (A Series ) China: A Portrait of the Country Through It’s Festivals and Traditions No author is listed because this series was written by various people. (Directions for making a dragon head is on pg. 12-12 and a felt fish on pg. 21 along with other project ideas.) J 509.51 WILLIAMS 1996 Made in China: Ideas and Inventions from Ancient China by Suzanne Williams J 931 OCONNOR The Emperor’s Silent Army: Terracotta Warriors of Ancient China by Jane O’Connor J 931.04 FISHER The Great Wall of China by Leonard Everett Fisher Young Adult Section (YA) Teenagers are the target audience for these books. More mature themes are covered in some of these books, so different parents will have different convictions about the content in these books. Books are organized by author’s last name. Ancient China Unit Study: Online Resources Google the same keywords as used in the online library catalogue “Ancient China,†“China,†“Dragons,†“Kites,†“Silkworms,†“Silk,†“Tangrams’†“Great Wall of China,†“Chinese Zodiac,†and “Ancient Chinese Inventions.†After reading the Fiesta! Book from the library, I also googled “Dragon Boat Festival†and “Qu Yuan†because he’s the poet honored in the Dragon Boat Festival. Coloring Pages- Google using the words “free downloadable†then a keyword. Be prepared to print out images on a smaller scale if you’re including them in a lapbook. Live Silkworms (Plan A) Mine arrived alive but died 2 days later. http://www.silkwormshop.com/index.html Silkworm Life Cycle (Plan B) http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/butterfly/activities/printouts/silkworm.shtml Silkworm Poem http://wildrosereader.blogspot.com/2009/04/silkworm-cocoon-pupa-poems-variatons-on.html Dragon Boat Festival http://www.familyholiday.net/chinese-dragon-boat-festival-coloring-pages Chinese Zodiac Symbols http://www.hellokids.com/c_14129/reading-online/holidays/chinese-new-year/chinese-zodiac/chinese-zodiac-rooster Ancient Chinese Inventions http://www.handipoints.com/coloring-pages/fun-facts/chinese-inventions Selected Passages of Poetry by Qu Yuan http://www.shigeku.com/xlib/lingshidao/hanshi/quyuan.htm The actual selections I had my child copy as a handwriting and poetry assignment were: “Qu Yuan 340-278 BC Long did I sigh and wipe away my tears, To see my people bowed with griefs and fears… …I marvel at the folly of the king, So heedless of the people’s suffering…†Hands on Activities Dragon Head Directions are in Fiesta! China pg. 12-13. Take a picture and print it out so if you want it in a lapbook. Felt Fish Directions are in Fiesta! China pg. 21 Tangram Art Directions are in Grandfather Tang’s Story by Tompert on the last page. I cut out the tangram shapes in black cardstock, my child arranged them following the pictures in the book, and I glued them onto Japanese (Shhh! Don’t tell anyone!) origami papers with Asian patterns. You can simplify by using black tangram blocks (if you have them) on a brightly colored paper, taking a digital photo, and printing them out so they can be labeled in a lapbook/notebook. Kite Directions are in Kites: Magic Wishes that Fly Up to the Sky by Demi on the last 3 pages. Potato Prints Cut a raw potato in half and draw or scratch out a Chinese character on the white flat part. Scoop away the white flat part of the potato that isn’t part of the character about 1/4-1/2 in deep. Dip in paint or ink and print multiple times on paper-rice paper if you’ve got it. Chinese Watercolor Landscape Directions are in The Usborne Book of World History pg. 76. Paint a Chinese landscape on made or purchased rice paper if you can make it or get it. Glue it to cardstock as a cover for narrations. Coloring Pages See the online resources section of this document. Make mini book of Chinese inventions. Make Chinese Zodiac. Night Sky On black paper glue stars and a moon to make a cover for a narration about the lunar calendar or Chinese Zodiac. Confucian Chart Make a chart of relationships according to Story of the World by Susan Wise Bauer Ch 35: China’s Wise Teacher pg. 251-253. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MelanieM Posted March 20, 2014 Share Posted March 20, 2014 We've only done one so far this year, but I can share a couple of things that work well for us... Rather than using file folders, I use those duotang folders and whole punch some card stock to put in there to hold the mini-books. This way we can easily combine mini-books with notebooking pages, and make it into a larger book. It also makes it easier to do one book for the entire family, rather than having everyone work on their own smaller lapbooks. I have found it really helpful to pre-cut a bunch of blank mini-books so that we have them on hand, rather than needing to do it every time we have something to add to the book. The cutting in the moment just seems to slow down information gathering around here. (I pre-cut all the ones we've printed as well, for the same reason.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eagle Posted March 21, 2014 Author Share Posted March 21, 2014 Thanks everyone for the advice so far. I decided against file folders as I don't know what I would do with them once complete. For FIAR we are using an unlined "exercise book". For science I think I will do looseleaf sheets so I can add to sections as we go along. Putting them in a duotang is a good idea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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