Faith's First Lapbook!

Since decided to scrap our literature program a week or so ago, Faith and I have been on a journey to find something new to do. She's been reading to herself and taking book quizzes on BookAdventure (kind of like A.R. quizzes), but we still needed something more than that.

I had pretty much settled on unit studies/lapbooks and came across one on HomeschoolShare for Fancy Nancy: Explorer Extraordinaire. The book, in and of itself, is lower than Faith's reading level. However, I thought it might be good to try out the lapbook concept on a book that she could easily read & understand with minimal direction from me. Plus, she loves Fancy Nancy and I figured it couldn't hurt to use a book I knew she'd love.

She finished up earlier today, so I took pictures to document it and share with Nana of course. I believe if you click on each picture, it will take you to a bigger version to see more detail.

I don't have file folders handy, so we used large construction paper for the shell. Faith is careful anyhow, so it's not like it will end up ripped. We made a number of the mini books ourselves and got the others off of Enchanted Learning.

Inside, on the left panel are:
2 accordian books - Fancy Words #1 and #2 which list all the vocab words in the book
A mini book of Nancy's Rules to Explore which Faith wrote down & illustrated
A petal book of the French words in the book (which we'll add to our regular French vocab too)

On the right panel:
A "Map of My Territory" which resembles the map in the book, only with our neighborhood
A pocket with 3 mini books of insect life cycles (ant, butterfly & ladybug)

In the center panel:
A tabbed book of the butterfly life cycle in detail
A fun crossword puzzle of a butterfly with a hidden message
Hearts listing fun facts about ladybugs

The folder opened up:


A better look at some of the mini books opened:


Faith wanted to show the vocabulary book better:


And the butterfly life cycle book, she really liked this one:


From what I've learned, some lapbooks can go into a lot more detail with a lot more panels, making up nearly an entire curriculum worth of material. However, we are using ours for literature and some science and history. I already have a separate language arts curriculum, grammar, math, and chronological history that I don't plan to chance, so this will just supplement in those areas. Essentially, I'm taking her lead on where to go with the lapbook, which I suspect may have quite the science bent.

Now that we've tried one, I have more ideas for next time where we'll add a few more literature elements (plots, characters, etc). As fun as Fancy Nancy was, the book read more like a guide than a story, so the lit elements were harder to discover.

Next up, the Frog & Toad series by Arnold Lobel. Faith would have started tonight, if I would have let her. :o)

Comments

  1. That is cute! I think Meghan would enjoy that one.
    We did a Madeline one from HSS that was cute. It's an easy read and fun book but lots involved too. She learned about body parts, (which can be expanded) and about France among other things.
    Join the message board if you haven't already. Love it there!

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  2. Very cute! Faith did a great job!

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