Lapbooks are fun for students and let them organize all the information they collect. Rather than notes in a notebook, filling out workbook pages, or discussing what they read, it's like making a scrapbook to round out a unit. The booklets might look daunting, but actually are fairly easy to assemble using file folders and other materials you probably already have in your schooling items around the house such as cardstock, glue, scissors, crayons stapler, etc. Each portion of the lapbooks include miniature booklets, display notes sections, and other interactive components that the student assembles and attaches to the lapbook file folders. Once all of the pieces are completed and attached to the file folder lapbook, the project is complete.
We did make a few mistakes. I printed in black and white to save ink, figuring that we could color it in. That didn't work - the "color" parts came out so dark that there was no way we could color over them. I realized (later) that there was a "coloring book" printing option that would have given us that option, but I didn't know that until too late. We also used regular school glue, rather than the recommended glue, so we have all those unsightly creases and bubbles. With a little more attention to detail, our lapbook would be beautiful.
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| Creation - the neat freak perfectionist in me was screaming internally, but I had to let it happen! |
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| Final product |
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| The main creator, feeling very proud! |
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| More of a distraction, but she learned a lot! |
There is (usually) a one page printout explains the inventor and why that person was important. This was excellent practice in listening for the key information. The information provided is brief, but thorough enough that you do not need to read any additional books if you don’t want to. I didn’t require my kids to read any other books, but I did bring home a selection from the library.
Then, you transfer that information to the lap book. Sometimes it's a flip book with key aspects. Sometimes it's about the invention. Sometimes it's about the life of the inventor. There are different formats, which the girls really liked. We chose to write on the completed lapbook, but I know others like to write and build as they go. Madison dictated and I wrote, since her handwriting is still a little big to fit into the small spaces.
But whether or not it was as polished as the perfectionist in me wanted, it definitely fulfilled the educational purpose. Last year Madison became really interested in Ben Franklin. Although we focused mostly on his political life, she knew that he was also a prolific inventor, and that was a good jumping off point for us to explore other major inventors. This unit covers:
- What is an invention?
- Johannes Gutenberg
- Benjamin Franklin
- John Deere
- The Wright Brothers
- Guglielmo Marconi
- George Eastman
- Louis Braille
- Eli Whitney
- Leonardo da Vinci
- Robert Fulton
- Thomas Jefferson
- Galileo Galilei
- George Stevenson
- Thomas Edison
- Jonas Salk
- George Washington Carver
- Henry Ford
- Alexander Graham Bell
