Lapbooks: A fun way to learn

I have heard of lapbooks in the past, but we had never tried them...until today.
There are some pros and cons to doing the entire lapbook in one day (as we did today). If you do it all in one day, you get the mess over-with and the lapbook finished. However, because kids aren't the most patient individuals, they tend to rush through everything. Then it is harder to make a nice, neat book. One really needs time to add all of the information.

My kids really enjoyed the experience, and and now they have a nice lapbook at which to keep and look. We plan to do more of them in the future, but I will probably have them work on one mini book at a time. Then when we are finished with each part they can assemble the completed book.


A lapbook starts with a file folder - folded in the middle. The tabs fit nicely together.


I had bought some scrapbooking supplies for a project that I was planning to do in December, but I never used it. Because of that, I have some nice colorful paper and Mod Podge (which is a wonderful glue. It dries clear and shiny).
We are using The Usborne Children's Encyclopedia for Science. We have been studying facts about the earth, so we chose this as our topic. I did a search for a true picture of the earth from space. We found a nice one, and the boys cut a circle out of the scrapbooking paper and painted it.

Here is Justin's accordian mini book with earth facts...

I can't remember what you call these, but you turn the top portion to reveal facts. We used brads to fasten the middle.

Justin decided to make an icicle to write cold facts about the earth and a sun to write hot facts.

He made a mini booklet to write more items about the atmosphere...

Justin's finished product...

I cut some old camo pants into strips and stapled them to the front to make a tie closure.

Jonathan's lapbook. The nice thing is that you can have them customize them according to their age and patience level. He made an accordian book and a little slider circle.

He also drew a cute sun and icycle to represent weather patterns.

Ryan isn't finished with his. After painting the earth and writing one word, he was ready to be done. Hopefully we will do more on his tomorrow. :-)