Lapbooks

You know I’m not the crafty loving type of person, but I know that learning with lapbooks stick. Today, I’m sharing 4 clever ways to store writing in lapbooks. Not only are these good ideas for long term storage, but they are also out of the box ideas that nudge reluctant writers to put pen to paper.

First, look at these ideas that work for younger kids or even kids that are not so young, but hate writing.

Though there are three ideas on this one page above, I list them as one way to store writing because they are similar.

The lapbook above comes from one of our earlier frog lapbooks. One idea is the sandwich shaped book.

Any shape makes learning fun and lapbooks are perfect for creating shaped pages.

Not only is the shape of the sandwich book perfect for helping your child to remember what they are writing about, but the small size breaks down writing into bite (corny pun intended) size pieces.

Though I love shaped books for this age, list making is also another way to gently coax a writer to write.

And then, any book that folds up and fits into a pocket is just plain fun. The sheet in the pocket is a maze that one of my sons wanted to do and he colored the snake on the outside and we folded it up.

Look here at my post How to Turn Boring Worksheets into Fun Minibooks – From Boring to Interactive.

The list making book and the sandwich book are attached by a brad. You can use one brad so that the book is flip up style or use two brads so the book opens from left to right or vice versa.

Really a number of these short books can be used for writers up until middle school.

The next way to store writing is through a vocabulary book with lift tabs.

This two page spread above is big enough for eight words.

When the tab is lifted, the definition is underneath. I didn’t even create these books. It was a simple paper cut and fold.

The books are in our Plains Indian lapbook. Of course with these books, no brad or staples are needed, just paper and glue. They have held up nicely over the years.

Then the third way to store writing is shown below in our Westward Ho lapbook and unit study.

I love this way we stored our writing, which is sentence strip style.

Some unit study topics or lapbooks are more suited than others for out of the ordinary shapes and our Westward Ho was one of them.

I made the Barrel of Words and the boys wrote on the sentence strips.The sentence strips are not intimidating looking when you want your child to love writing.

What I like about this third method of storing writing is that depending on my child’s age, I can have them write as many strips as I want them to. There is something about writing on separate strips that doesn’t make writing overwhelming. Of course, piece the strips together and your child can have one or two pages, but they don’t need to know that do they?

It is just another creative way for a child to not only love what he is learning about, but to feel that writing is manageable.

This fourth way I stored writing now moves on to middle and high school level.

This short research paper comes from one of my sons in ninth grade and it is from our Amazon lapbook and unit study.

By this age, your teen really needs a normal size page to write on so you need to be a bit more creative.

First, I added another inside flap to the lapbook. Then again I used brads just because they are so versatile.

I added two brads at the bottom outside of the page protector and pushed it through the flap..

And then added two brads inside the page protector and pushed it through the flap.

By opening the page protector and only pushing the brad through the back side of the page protector, it stays open at the top so the research paper can be top loaded.

By also mounting the research paper on acid free paper and using good quality tape, it has kept the pages straight as they are pulled in and out of the page protectors.

Though tempted to use cheaper products, using higher quality products like acid free paper keeps precious things like writing looking awesome for a longer time.

There are more ways to store writing, but these 4 ways have been timeless for us and fit a variety of lapbooks.

How do you like to store your child’s writing?

You may also like to read these great tips:

• 3 Ways to Choose the BEST Writing Curriculum (for a Growing Homeschool Family)
• Cursive Matters; Handwriting Style Doesn’t + Free Resources
• Plains Indians Free Writing Prompts. For Elementary, Middle and High School Homeschooled Kids

Hugs and love ya,