Would you believe me if I told you after creating more than 30+ lapbooks with my children {I have lost track} that using lapbooks in our homeschool seemed like a turn off to us when we started homeschooling?
Today, using lapbooks as enrichment in our every day unit studies have kept them a delight and not overwhelming our day. My journey did not start off that way.
I made three basic mistakes when I initially folded in (corny pun I know) lapbooks into our day.
If you are the non-crafty person and have been avoiding creating a lapbook with your kids, hopefully steering you clear of my mistakes will nudge you to try one or two.
I had to have an attitude adjustment first and I have to confess about it now.
I knew that my kids were not the crafty loving (or so I thought) type of kids and I knew lapbooks were for those “other” homeschoolers. You know the ones who pine to do crafts all day.
Interactive Tool or Time Waster Tool?
I just knew that lapbooks were more about crafts than conscientious and diligent learning.
Because crafts are at the opposite end of my personality style or I should say as I understood crafts to be at the time, I missed out on several years of creating lapbooks with my older son.
Fast forward about five years after that thinking, my teaching methods were boring and blah.
I knew worksheets didn’t take long for my children to do (I admit it, I was bad because that is all we did) and they took even less time for my children to forget about them.
Moving out of my comfort zone and wanting our homeschool journey to be a memorable one, I knew the hands-on element was missing in our every day learning.
I wanted to capture that element of learning for my sons and gradually did more research on lapbooks.
Slowly, I started to see that the greatest benefit to my children about lapbooks is that they are a fantastic interactive learning tool.
The interactive part to opening/closing the minibooks, turning the circle minibook and folding/unfolding to read information is much like— well— the learning that is done in museums.
Why did we prefer a day at the museum over doing a worksheet?
Museums are a fun place to visit not because you look forward to doing a worksheet when you get there.
Learning can be done informally and at your child’s pace while he presses buttons for information to light up, turns a wheel for more information, listens to the information and otherwise follows along to see the exhibits and read the information.
Even adults still like this part of a museum.
We never out grow a museum.
Beware of over Crafting!
Lapbooks are like a mini museum in a file folder. Redefining my meaning of crafts, I first tried several months of crafts or I should say over crafting.
I almost gave up because I tried to be something I was not and my boys weren’t having fun either.
When we would rather read something from a book than glue a bean on a paper, I knew I went too far the other way in trying to incorporate crafts.
Beware of Coloring!
That wasn’t the only mistake I made. I remember when my sister who has all girls would meet up with us to school together when our kids were preschool.
Her girls would sit so patiently and sweetly as they couldn’t wait to color, doodle and create. My boys ran from coloring and were outside using tree branches for swords on each other.
Both my sister and I had a lot to learn as new teachers because we both thought the other family had something “wrong” with their kids.
Because I know boys learned differently and needed to strengthen their fine motor skills, I realized coloring was just one way to do it, not the only way.
As I created lapbooks, I understood the way my boys learned.
For my sons the fun is not necessarily in coloring pictures so I added more and more pictures or clip art already colored to my lapbooks.
They could focus on learning the content, folding the books, and if they wanted to, they could do something crafty for the outside file folder flap.
Still to this day, I add in color pictures and coloring pages so if the mood strikes they can choose either option or a combination of both.
I didn’t restrain their creativity, but gave them options when they didn’t want to be.
Beware of Cutting!
I had already made two mistakes and this last mistake which was throwing a gazillion pages at my kids to cut actually did make us move away from lapbooking for a few months.
In doing school, I had to remember I wasn’t teaching scissor skills necessarily.
There is nothing about cutting out minibooks that inspired my children to want to do another lapbook. Quite the opposite, they wanted to run from it and I did too.
Realizing that I was not teaching my sons how to cut when we did lapbooks, I did a majority of the cutting for my sons in the early grades.
What a breath of fresh air as we sat down to start the next lapbook because most of the pages were cut.
This is perfectly okay to do. Just like any teacher would prepare flashcards or some other hands-on manipulative for her classroom, this was the part I did as a teacher for them.
Even as they got older, I still help with cutting out the minibooks.
Focusing on my family, I redefined the meaning of crafts in our home. Crafting now in my mind equates with hands-on and it can be virtually anything that your children enjoy doing.
It really is that easy and I had to understand that sometimes the house doesn’t always have to be a mess to enjoy them.
Today, my mind races with hands-on ideas, but I always weigh them against what my sons will really find delight doing and weigh the value of it against the concept I want them to learn.
Whether you have kids who desire to do crafts all day or run from them, you can still lapbook. Adjusting lapbooking to work for your family is key to savoring them.
I certainly don’t consider myself a true lapbooker if there is such a thing. Why? Because the crafts, cutting and coloring are not reasons we weave them in our day. While maintaining a hint of my classical roots while we do a fun hands-on easy lapbook, I have found a way to not miss out on something that brings learning alive for us.
It doesn’t have to be either or when you choose an approach to homeschooling, it just has to be good for your family.
Do you want to give lapbooks a try? Try one or two easy ones.
I have made it easy for you, I have divided up my lapbooks by history time period or science topic.
Pssst..They are ALL free too!
Hugs and love ya,
Kids love lapbooking for its final result. To keep them being enthusiastic with lapbooking, I always help the cutting process with my trimmer. We don’t do crafty things as all of us are really terrible in craft. Boys don’t like coloring. Therefore I won’t force them doing so as it is not coloring lesson. I definitely agree with you.
Trimmer is great for that.. Yes, so correct. We are not teaching coloring..lol that is unless you are.
I agree with all the things you don’t like about lapbooking; those are the things that have kept us from doing more lapbooks through our years of homeschooling.
Hi Susan,
Yep, for sure can make you run the other way. Each family needs to see what they want out of it and finding a way to use a tool for your family is key.
I am new to your site and have been quietly perusing it for about a month now. You are a very generous HS mom and Iappreciate all the work you are doing on this site.
I must confess that lapbooks stress me out a bit as it normally requires much more prep work for the teacher than the student?! (Perhaps I am incorrect in this assumption?)
As for the three C’s, I was just wondering what is left for them to do that might be considered educational after those things are taken away, other than offering a place for them to record what they learn.
I’m not trying to be negative, honest! I am just curious since I have been re-considering this alternative.
Hi Michelle,
Well great goodness, I don’t think it negative at all!! SO glad you ask, it’s a great question!
The point of my post was only to “caution” about those thing, not do those things.
When kids are little (normally the time spent learning scissors skills and coloring), that time period is so short compared to the older years. Though a lot of kids still enjoy coloring, mine too NOW, but only because I backed off when they were very little.
The point is to not go overboard when a child has had his fill of all of those things. It could be a turnoff to a wonderful interactive tool. Time should be spent on reading, adding information to the minibooks AND yes decorating them if they want to.
I don’t want to give you the wrong impression here. My boys enjoy decorating them and we do as you can see from my pictures on my other site. They enjoy making the lapbooks their own by a creative side, but it’s only because I didn’t “dump” it ALL on them. Well, okay I did..lol, but learned from it and backed off and is the whole reason I shared the post.
You’re not teaching scissor skills, cutting or coloring at the middle school or high school level, but you are teaching them how to present information in a pleasing and appealing manner. A great skill to have even through college.
Lapbooks are like the trifold boards I had to make each year when I did the science fair in public school. Certain not a tool for the babyish.
The point is to determine where is the “line” for your children. Some moms who just loves crafts may think her child does too and he may not. Visa versa, a mom who does not like crafts may go her whole journey with boring teaching tactics while her child is suffocating because he can’t create.
Balance is required for both types of moms to move outside of their comfort zone.
More time should be spent on the hands-on aspect of learning like doing activities, experiments (just like a science fair) and then recording those things in a lapbook with a flair or emphasis on making the material pleasing.
The decorating part of the trifold board in a science fair or cutting or coloring is only part of the grade. The content is the majority of the grade.
I hope that is more clear because sometimes it is hard to cover all grade levels in a post, but certainly at the preschool and Kindergarten level, the 3 C’s are important, but those skills are hard for those kids too. Not burning out a child on all of them at ONCE, can go a long way to helping them like lapbooks their whole journey.
I hope that this information helps you.
So glad you ask Michelle and glad to have you here!!