A lap full of learning

Yesterday I finished preparing a new tool I'm using in our homeschool this year. I bought a lapbook to use with my up-and-coming 1st grader, Brynna. Never heard of a lapbook? Well, I hadn't either until a couple of years ago, and even then I thought it was something that the moms had to design on their own. Well, I am not creative enough for that, but this year I bought one to go with Tapestry of Grace.

A lapbook is a book made out of file folders and mini-books glued inside them. They fold up flat, but when they open out, they have all sorts of little flaps, books, or mini-posters to record info, pictures, or whatever you desire. You can either make your own, buy them pre-assembled, or buy a cd with the mini-books ready to print. The latter is the option I chose (it's the more economical one of these last two; I already admitted I don't have the creative ability to do the first). Tapestry actually sells these to go with their curriculum, but they are designed by Cindy Kinney over at Knowledge Box Central. (If you've never been, hop on over to her site and check out all the options. She's got them for science, all different types of history topics, holidays, you name it!)

So Tuesday I ran off all sheets of paper. It was quite an impressive stack. I also folded the file folders and glued them together so they could dry overnight before complete assembly.
Yesterday I started cutting out the little booklets. Here they are after they are all cut out. As my lapbook has three folders within it, so I'm sorting the mini-books into three groups.
Then I started gluing the items to their proper place in the lapbook, again using rubber cement.

Viola, a complete lapbook.

If you can see from the pictures at all there are several items having to do with the Middle Ages, which we will be studying this fall. There are places to write about important people (e.g. John Wycliffe), vocabulary definitions, maps to label, amazing facts to record, pictures to color, dates to remember, and lots of flaps to flip and move. Brynna saw it yesterday and said, "that looks like fun." Many homeschoolers say that their kids are so fascinated with all the little flaps and things to mess with, that they can't help but read what they've recorded, and it helps them to retain a surprising amount at young ages. I just wanted to be a "fun mom" for once!
Another nice feature is that it folds completely flat when not in use.
This particular lapbook will take us through the first unit of Tapestry of Grace, year 2, which we will finish up sometime in October or November at the pace we'll be going. We are going to take our time going through the Middle Ages. There is just so much great stuff to study!

Hopefully Brynna will think so too! :-)