I’ve rounded up 18 colorful and free lapbooks for your history unit studies. On my homeschool lapbooks page you can find them in chronological order if you plan that way.
If you’re wanting to cover history through a hands-on approach, then you’ll love lapbooks.
Besides, lapbooking can be used by a student on any level. And it can be crafty or not.
Lapbooks can be as much as the product of the student as he wants it to be, or he can use part put together.
Note: Some of the lapbooks were free for a limited time.
Too, it’s a great hands-on tool for reviewing history.
In addition, there are many other reasons to use lapbooks while doing your history unit study.
If you’re focusing on reading a living book about history, then create separate mini books for the 5ws and 1H of writing — who, what, when, where, why, and how.
Some history unit studies will be more reading literature focused while others may be more event focused.
And with free lapbooks you can mix and match mini books depending on the history topic you’re focusing on.
8 Easy Mini Books to Make for a History Lapbook
For example, look at these other mini books that your children could create based on any history topic.
1. Make an easy foldable timeline.
Timelines can be as easy or as complicated and extensive as your student wants. I love this one by Home School in the Woods.
2. Write a mini biography about a history maker.
In addition, a mini biography can be written in a quick glance fashion.
3. Sketch a geographical area referenced in your history topic.
Also, storing a hand drawn sketch in a pocket is a great reference tool for you student.
4. Draw mini maps.
Even a pretend map or mythical map brings a history to life.
5. Use strips to write vocabulary words.
Too, when your student uses sentence strips for vocabulary words, writing is not as overwhelming.
6. Compare natural resources of an area if your history topic is slanted toward natural resources.
Then how the natural resources of an area affects the people of the local area is another fun topic to write about.
7. Use a trifold mini book to compare 3 events or 3 people.
Moreover, if you’re wanting to compare and contrast, a trifold books can compare three people, three events, or even three dates.
8. A layered book could help your students visual the main religions or cultural difference.
As you can see this is a very short list of the mini books that you can include in your lapbook or that you can find in free lapbooks.
The advantage of course to any lapbook or history study is that you can follow your child’s interest.
And another advantage to the free lapbooks I create is that they are all colorful. Visual appeal matters.
For instance, when I graded lapbooks created by my children visual appeal counted. Because we live in a digital age, visual appeal matters more than ever.
Adding clip art to illustrate a history topic properly is equally important.
History Lapbook Materials
Additionally, the beauty of your history lapbook is that very little materials are needed. Sure, you can make it fancy like we have done at times.
For example, we used strips of leather and a beautiful colorful shell with a feather as a clasp to close our Plains Indians lapbook.
Too, look at these beautiful Suede Leather Cords and gorgeous Ocean Tone Colored File Folders Letter Size.
Also, I love colorful file folders instead of the drab plain ones.
Too, one more technique we like is to use the bright color for the inside of the file folder.
If your file folder is bright colored on both sides, then it doesn’t matter.
It’s just more visually appealing and it stays pretty through the years.
More Lapbook Ideas
- 75 AWESOME Things to Add to a Lapbook
- How to Turn Boring Worksheets into Fun Minibooks – From Boring to Interactive
- Summer Learning with Lapbooks
- 4 Clever Ways to Store Writing in Lapbooks
If you’ve never used a lapbook with history, this is a great time to start.
Once your children do one or two they can get hooked on lapbooks and history.
Besides, look at this video, How to Homeschool EZ by Tina Robertson I have for you.
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Colorful and Free Lapbooks for History Unit Studies
You'll love this roundup of free lapbooks to bring your history topics to life.
This unit study will focus of course on the culture and life of a few different Native American people, I wanted to expose the injustices and ugly side of American history. Those are teachable moments too of examples that we do not want to be like. The ugly side of history is something we do not shy away from, but I do think it should be approached in age appropriate ways.
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America.
I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free…It will become all one thing, or all the other. “A House Divided” speech, June 16, 1858 Abraham Lincoln
I finally have the rest of the minibooks for the free Ancient Greece lapboook that seems like it took us half a year to cover.
I have the newest lapbook, which is the American history lapbook, learning about The Old West through the life of Wyatt Earp finished.
Marco Polo 1254 to 1324 – A unit study and lapbook about the life of Marco Polo and Genghis Khan, as well as how the Silk Road came under the control of the Mongol rule.
The French and British discovered prior to the French and Indian war that they were claiming lands that were not empty. The Iroquois had been in the New York State for several hundred years before Europeans arrived. The British and French tried to get different Indian tribes on their side, including the Iroquois.
In 1754 the British and the Iroquois Confederacy met and made an alliance. Britain provided the Iroquois with weapons and supplies, and the Native Americans helped the British fight against the French for control of the colonies.
Prior to 1775, the Indians had been dragged into many wars and the period prior to the American Revolution was no different. The Europeans had brought over superior weapons of destruction like guns, steel tomahawks, cannon and their diseases.
Ancient Civilization Lapbook covering Sumer, Mesopotamia, The Babylonian & Hammurabi, Minoan and Mycenaean , Ancient Egypt, Greece, Phoenician, Ancient Greece & Rome Pockets, and Celts.
I was born upon the prairie where the wind blew free, and there was nothing to break the light of the sun.
I was born where there were no enclosures, and where everything drew free breath.
I want to die there, and not within walls.”
~Ten Bears, Comanche Chief~
J. Edgar Hoover was named Assistant Director on August 22, 1921. We focused on the time period around his start with the FBI.
- Ancient Rome
- Ancient Babylon
- Ancient Phoenicia
- Famous Pharaohs and Queens of Egypt.
- Ancient Assyria
- Ancient China
This Medieval Japan Unit Study and Lapbook covers from 1185 – 1600 A.D.{1185 – 1600 A.D.} From the end of the Heian Period to the Beginning of Tokugawa {Edo} Period.
Your kids will love this Vikings lapbook and Vikings Unit Study. Barbarians as we use the term today had a very different meaning to the Ancient Greeks. The term Barbarian was coined by the Ancient Greeks and then used by the Romans.
The Oregon Trail was given National Historic Trail designation in 1978, honoring this great migration that helped assure that one day the Oregon country would one day be part of the United States.
Studying about Lewis and Clark has been one of the best ways to study American History. Begin with this mission statement by Thomas Jefferson below.
The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri river & such principal stream of it, as, by it’s course and communication with the waters of the Pacific Ocean…may offer the most direct & practicable water communication across this continent for the purpose of commerce.
Words by President Thomas Jefferson, June, 1803.
RMS Titanic – {April 14/15, 1912}
Before Washington began to fight the battles of the Revolution in the east, Daniel Boone and other famous hunters were fighting bears and Indians in what was then called the west. By that war in the woods, these brave and hardy men helped us to get possession of that part of the country.
