Over the past two years, we’ve been increasingly adding lapbooks into our homeschool learning. At first, I bought lapbook kits and followed every single direction. For me, the idea of taking file folders and creating a stimulating educational project seemed impossible.
Fast forward to today, and we’re loving our lapbooks. I’ve overcome my file folder fears as you can see with our Where the Red Fern Grows Unit Study and Lapbook. Most of the time I now create our own lapbooks with a combination of resources. I’ve come to see lapbooking as a personalized visual record of what each child has learned.
It came to my attention this week that we needed to compile a literature lapbook highlighting some of our summer family read alouds. Of course, like many families, most days flew by within our summer adventures. Even though we were on-the-go I had the children complete copywork and a simple drawing from each book that we completed.
Lapbooking Tips
- Don’t be intimidated by lapbooking or creating your own project. For these projects, I simply typed the name of each book in a funky font using MS Word. I printed the list of titles and had Jadin and Zion do their own cutting. You can see that each boy freely created something a little different for their lapbook covers.
- K.I.S.S. {Keep It Simple Sweetie} We used the simple method of the children copying a favorite paragraph from each story. Then they drew a picture to go along with their writing. These are “bare bones” lapbooks. There are no minibooks, special charts or additional flaps-just the boys’ drawings and writings.
Here’s part of the inside of Jadin’s Life of George Washington lapbook:
Here is the 4th flap from Jadin’s Narnia Lapbook
Here’s part of the inside of Zion’s lapbook:
- Protect your books: I use plastic sheet protectors that I cut along the bottom and side to protect each lapbook. Then each child has their own large binder to store their lapbooks.
The binder and plastic sheet protector links below are my Amazon affiliate links. Thank you for your support.
We use a large 3-ring binder to hold each kiddos lapbook collection.
I slide each lapbook into its own plastic sheet protector. I slice the plastic sheet protector along the bottom and right side. This way it protects the front and back of the lapbook. The lapbook itself can continue to open and close just like a book. And all the lapbooks live happily ever after within the binder.
- Have a lapbook day: Devoting one day each week to a special lapbook project is a great way to dive deep into focused lapbooking time. This way you don’t have to drag out the lapbook mess each day, and the kids can have hours to clip, create, and design!
Excuse the long hair and shirtless country boy look here :). This is Jadin and Zion working on their Lego Unit Study and Lapbook one hot summer day in our old farmhouse without A/C. You can download the free Lego Unit Study and Lapbook here.
- Be Realistic: In the Spring & Summer I don’t plan any lapbooks. I know our family is itching to get outdoors and enjoy country life, roadschooling, frogs and tire swings. I plan large lapbooks for late fall, winter and early spring. Once the weather hits 60 degrees the lapbooks hibernate for the season.
More FREE Lapbooking Resources:
Here’s the biggest list of free homeschool lapbooks – ever!
Spice Up Your Learning By Making Lapbooks! {w/ Jimmie on Squidoo}
Lapbook Lessons: Free Lapbooks
Homeschool Share: Free Lapbooks {My favorite site!}
Homeschool Helper Online: Free Lapbooks
Dynamic 2 Moms: Lots of free Lapbooks
The Homeschool Mom: Many Lapbooking articles and resources
