There is no comparison of homeschool lapbooks to digital enhanced content today, but there may be competition. Bring it. You’re sure to find a homeschool lapbook here at Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus.
When I started homeschooling, I stuck CDs in the computer and I controlled the digital content that my children were watching.
After being introduced to lapbooks, I knew it was a learning tool that could be a contender to digital content now and in the future. I wasn’t wrong.
My affection for lapbooks, however, was not immediate.
At first glance, I assumed it was a learning tool that was opposite of what I thought learning should look like. The lapbooks seemed more like a crafty project and waste of our learning time with all the cutting and coloring.
First, what is a lapbook?
What is a Lapbook
A most basic definition is that it is a group of small books or minibooks, mostly of different shapes and sizes that contain information about the topic the lapbook is on. It is a hands-on tool which can easily take the place of worksheets, tests, and memorization. Created by the student each one will be different. A lapbook can be as creative or not as the child wants it to be.
What is Lapbooking
Sometimes I get asked what is lapbooking. It just means using a lapbook to cover a subject or theme. It means the process that your child goes through to create one. It can take anywhere from a few days to weeks to complete one.
In addition, your child can used ones with prepared minibooks or he can create the minibooks without any assistance.
How to make a Lapbook With Paper
And creating a lapbook doesn’t have to be in-depth or can be as you want it to be. This is the best thing about lapbooks. Like any hands-on tool, it bends to the needs of the child.
Look at my two videos on how to make a lapbook and what is a lapbook.
Additionally, we do use worksheets in our lapbook occasionally. However, what can make even a worksheet interactive is how it’s folded to put into a lapbook to store it.
Look at my post How to Turn Boring Worksheets into Fun Minibooks – From Boring to Interactive
Lapbook Materials
Moreover, most of the materials for a diy lapbook you already have in your home.
My top 3 favorite supplies are bright colored letter size file folders, clear packaging tape, and glue acid free. These top materials are important if you’re creating lapbooks to last as memory keepers.
Of course, paper matters too the most.
If you’re creating lapbooks and want to do them as inexpensive as possible, then regular paper works fine.
However, if you want your child to keep them to use another year or for memories, you need cardstock. And you want the lightest weight cardstock that you can get. Anything too thick and your child can’t fold the paper minbooks easily.
However, there are SO MANY things your student can add to his lapbook.
My post 75 AWESOME Things to Add to a Lapbook will get you started.
Ancient Civilization Lapbooks
Next, look at these fun ancient history lapbooks divided by time period. I have many lapbook ideas for history.
I have history lapbooks organized by time period as close as I can get.
- Indus Valley
- Ancient Civilization Lapbook covering Sumer, Mesopotamia, The Babylonian & Hammurabi, Minoan and Mycenaean , Ancient Egypt, Greece, Phoenician, Ancient Greece & Rome Pockets, and Celts
Middle Ages to Renaissance Lapbooks
Also, you’ll love these next lapbooks which are topics we covered from the middle ages to the renaissance and reformation time period.
Exploration, Colonization, and Industrialization to Revolution Themed Lapbooks
World Wars to Modern History and Geography Lapbooks
3 Best Things About Lapbooks
1. If your child wants a whole to pieces or wants a big picture first look at a topic, he’ll love lapbooks.
I love details, but when I teach I also can overwhelm my sons. A lapbook allows us to add minibooks or facts to remind my kids of the major teaching points I want them to remember.
Information can be arranged in a lapbook to give a child a quick glimpse of a topic. That’s the point. It can be as general or as detailed as you or your child want it to be.
2. If your child does better with a mastery based approach, lapbooks allow him freedom to master the material that piques his interest.
Another lure of lapbooks is that if you have an independent learner, he doesn’t always want a lot of direction when his curiosity has been piqued.
Lapbooks incite an uncontrollable urge to research and add more information that your child wants to learn. It gives an independent learner freedom to learn what he wants to.
One of the best things about this step is that he has to learn to organize that material so it fits compactly into a minibook or chart. That is a higher level skill.
That technique has been one of the things I’ve liked most about lapbooks.
Our kids amass so much knowledge. But instead of using rote memory to tell it back, they need to learn how to connect it to other topics they know.
Understanding comes from manipulating the information and categorizing it.
Because the books are small, a learner has to manipulate and extract key points. In a setting that seems more fun than work he learns to organize his information.
3. No amount of digital content can rival your child’s own work for a masterpiece that lasts into adulthood.
When my older two sons look back at their learning journey, they haven’t mentioned any learning app, but they do remember the hard work put into their lapbooks.
Not only is it a learning tool that they used for constant review, but it’s a project worth keeping.
Science and Nature Lapbooks
In addition, I have many lapbook ideas for science and nature lapbooks to help bring your topics to life.
- North American Robin Lapbook
- Peregrine Falcon Unit Study and Lapbook
- Strawberry Lapbook
3 Worst Things About Lapbooks
I almost stopped doing lapbooks because I fail into traps that most new lapbookers do.
1. Lapbooks can turn crafty project if you allow it to overtake your day.
I admit it. I wasn’t all that much into crafts. I’ve come a long way since I first started using lapbooks.
Now, I realize the value of allowing children creative outlets and try to look past the mess.
If you and your kids love crafts this won’t be a negative for you. For me and my sons, we focused too much on the crafty part of the lapbook instead of the research part of it.
I soon learned that minibooks didn’t have to be all designed by the kids. We could use some premade ones.
2. Lapbooks can be expensive if you choose color pictures and clip art.
If you only use black and white pictures and have your children color them all, you can save some money.
But in the process you may create a lapbook hater if you have kids that don’t really like coloring.
Coloring by younger children for the most part is enjoyable, but as they grow, emphasis needs to be on clip art and pictures that inspire a learner to dig into the information.
Cardstock, printers, and colorful clip art costs money. If you have multiple children, it can cost a bit more.
Although it can get costly, I also remember that we will have a tool that lasts almost a lifetime. And lapbooks can have flips and flaps added to it each year as your child grows.
It costs something to have a portfolio for my children’s work other than a bunch of boring stapled worksheets.
Lapbooks have been worth every penny, nickel, dime, quarter and dollar I spent through the years to have something my children can look back on that they had a hand in creating. What a worthy investment.
3. The prep work can be time consuming.
If coloring is one gripe then right behind that is my gripe for the time it takes to prep the minibooks.
Through the years, I’ve learned a few tips. I don’t have us sit down at one time and do all the minibooks at one time. By doing one or two each day, I can help each child and it doesn’t become too overwhelming to prepare one or two each day.
Also, unless I’m teaching a course in fine motor skills, I’ve learned to cut some of the minibooks on my own time. My kids seemed more impatient than me and having to cut out all the minibooks just seem torture.
Although I still don’t like the prep work, I see the value of having it done before we sit down to work on the lapbook. Emphasis is put on the content instead of cutting.
Now, I will print and cut out some of the minibooks on my time. I kept each of my kids’ books in separate ziploc bags.
By storing each kids’ books in separate ziploc bags each kid can add special things he discovers to his lapbook when he puts it together. One of my sons found a shed snake skin and kept it in his ziploc bag until he put his lapbook together.
Lapbooks are not time wasters but a good use of time. It’s a fun and interactive way for kids to remember information. Whatever digital curriculum comes, it just can’t equal the time each child puts into preparing a lapbook.
A premade book or digital curriculum is no comparison to a handmade interactive tool made by your child.
