Lapbooking on a Shoestring
A lapbook or lap book is basically an educational learning tool made from a folder. They may also be referred to as shutterbooks, graphic organizers, fold books, presentation books, flap books, and project books. They can be done at the close of your unit studies to highlight key points the kids have learned – a place to glue projects or little books they’ve made for the unit, be based solely on a book your child has just read or help reinforce mathematical functions. Use it to document what your children have learned or even to display and refer back to. Some people prefer to buy kits ready to put together while others may use blank templates to help create, and still others come up with a design of their own. We’ve done all kinds of lapbooks – and from what we’ve found, there is no wrong way to put together a lapbook. I personally prefer some type of order in how they look. The information inside is only limited by imagination. The links below show you how to make the folds and show examples.
If you have a lapbooking website or blog
American Museum of Natural History Making Field Journals.
Earth Science Lapbook from Highland Heritage.
Free projects from Making Books with Children include items such as a wish scroll, stick and elastic book, step book and more.
Graphic organizers you can print to use in your lapbooks.
Learn how to make Marble Paper using just: shaving cream, tempera paints, paper plates (or trays for larger prints), brushes, combs, paper (cut to size needed), cardboard, sponges for clean-up. Once done, you can use the paper in sketchbooks, bookmaking, lapbooks, greeting cards, notebooks, and more. This is also a fun 4-H project you can make to take to Fair.
Colouring Book of Flags has flags that have been drawn in outline form, suitable for printing to be colored in by hand. You can choose from all the states, a few historical flags, Canadian provinces, and most other regions. These would be excellent to add to any unit study, lapbook, notebook, and even timeline notebook.
Need a template for your lapbook or other project? Templates by Donovan has a lot of templates. Scroll down for the mini-book templates to add to your lapbooks.
Homeschool Share has over 100 free templates ranging from folds to graphic organizers and story summaries. They also have Free Lapbooks which are added to frequently. Many of those are literature lapbooks and FIAR.
Facebook Groups:
Homeschooling With Lapbooks
Lapbooks and File Folder Games
Homeschool Lapbooks
Book Suggestions
The Big Book of Books and Activities by Dinah Zike.
Double Lapbook
How to make a double folder Lapbook.
YouTube Lapbook Lessons: Double Lapbook https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juO_qgVF-3U
Folds
Dinak Zike Folds on YouTube
YouTube Lapbook Lessons: How to make a layered book https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG9-3Lsd8Us
TeachNet’s step-by-step guide for folds Dioramas, Trioramas, Quadramas
Lapbook Supplies
You can use many things in your lapbooks, but these companies sell items for lapbookers. Many of them have free samples on their websites.
Homeschool In the Woods has great historical timeline figures to assist in your lapbooks, notebooks, scrapbooks, games and anything else you can think of.
Dinah Zike shows books and folds in the Big Book of Books and Activities.
The Ultimate Lap Book Handbook by Tammy Duby and Cyndy Regeling.
In the Hands of a Child brings the excitement of hands-on learning to life with Project Packs and Research Packs for students of all ages. Each of the completed projects fits neatly into a file folder; storage is simple, and the projects become wonderful keepsakes with an educational value.
Notebooking / Journaling
Notebooking, or Journaling is creatively collecting information in a notebook. If you use a 3-ring binder you can easily add or remove pages. We put our unit studies into notebooks.
ProClick Binding machine that has re-openable spines that lock closed to insure secure binding.
How To Use The Proclick Binding Machine To Bind Your Own Notebooks By Debra Reed
NotebookingPages.com offers free homeschool resources such as notebooking pages, lapbooking templates, and many other printables.
To Notebook, Lapbook or Scrapbook. This article from by Terri Johnson Knowledge Quest discusses the similarities and differences of each method of how your child’s work has been documented or displayed.
Follow Homeschool on a Shoestring’s Lapbooking Pinterest Board