Discovering Lapbooks!

Look what I discovered! It's a hands-on, creative thinking, visual organizing dream come true! This is going to be PERFECT for our summer vacation. And after we practice, we can probably incorporate these into our "after-school" stuff. This is the first one. I showed Kacy a video from YouTube of someone making one. I showed her some pictures, printed out a few mini-book templates, and then I let her just go. She used this lapbook to represent what she learned about Mission Santa Ines. It was perfectly engaging for her. The kids have to learn something first, keep track of it, and then they can do the "fun" part of cutting, pasting, and organizing their information. The one source I have bookmarked so far is from a homeschool website called "Homeschool Share." If you click on the link, it will take you directly to their lapbooking page, with lots of free lapbook ideas. I like the idea of more free form stuff for the older kids, but I love some of the structure for the younger kids, and the ideas for myself.

One of the things I really like about lapbooks is the semi-durable nature of them. The kids can keep them and review them. 

I think we might start our summer learning off with the solar system/stars/planets etc.