Snowflake Bentley

This spring, we completed a study and lapbook on Wilson Bentley, the man who developed the technique for photographing snowflakes. The children found it very interesting "Snowflake" Bentley was homeschooled and that his parents sacrificed a great deal to help him achieve his dreams.

Our lapbook cover

Symbols of Vermont

Our lapbook

The three middle children worked together on this project, sharing in the duties of cutting, writing, and gluing the different mini-books.

After we finished the lapbook, each child took a tray outside and brought in a mound of snow to play with. They especially enjoyed this part of the project.

Lapbooks

The Littles finished up a couple of lapbook projects last week.

Here is Dan with his Christmas Tot book. These are great little learning lapbooks. I first read about these on Carisa's blog, 1+1+1=1. She has some wonderful ideas for teaching your little ones.

The little girls finished their lapbook of the book Hand, Hand, Finger, Thumb, by Al Perkins. They love working on these lapbooks and I enjoy them too. We got this lapbook from Homeschool Share. This is a terrific site with many different units and lapbooks to choose from, all free.

Election Lapbook

After several days off of our regular schoolwork, we got back to work today and accomplished quite a bit.

The top of the list was to finish Gabe's election lapbook. He did up the last few minit-books and he and I arranged the books and glued them into the folder. I think he is enjoying these better each time he completes one. He was planning today where he would start storing all his completed folders.

The Grouchy Ladybug Lapbook

The Littles have finished up their lapbook on The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle from Homeschool Share.

We have had mixed reactions to lapbooking over the years. I tried them many years ago when Bessie was small. She did not enjoy them. We set them aside. We have revisited them the last few years. Bessie enjoys them now that she is in highschool...go figure. She is doing one right now on the election process. There are some great lapbooks out there for older students.

Gabe enjoys the mini-books, the coloring and the pasting, but not the cutting or much writing. His writing is improving by leaps and bounds this year and he is now more willing to work on the writing. I don't mind doing the cutting (a hold over from paper dolls or maybe my love of scrapbooking).

Now, the Littles, they love everything about lapbooks. I finally have my group of eager lapbookers!

It is often hard to know what themes to do with them, as their ability levels are all over the place. We pick something they like and work with the books to find ones that they are able to do but will also challenge them a bit.

They enjoyed working this one. It started out being for Dan, then Hannah joined us and finally Rachel wanted to participate, so we have a mix of who did what. Some of the mini-books they all did, some we worked on as a group. Lapbooks are helping them learn some of the basic things they have been missing in a fun and creative way.

I enjoying using lapbooks as a teaching method and will be using them often with the Littles.

Cover from Eric Carle's book

Inside

Inside with flap up for extra work

There were some extra activity sheets that we did and I will probably make a pocket for the back to keep these in. Right now they are just tucked inside.

They did a great job and they were very proud of their accomplishment and so was I.

Tiger Lapbook

Gabe finished the Tiger lapbook he has been working on.

We still have mixed feelings on Lapbooks. I love them, the kids aren't always convinced, although Gabe seemed to enjoy this one very much. We both learned a lot while doing this topic. Perhaps subject matter is the key to a successful Lapbook.

This Lapbook came from Homeschool Share. This is a great resource for free Lapbooks written by other homeschooling moms.

Cover

Gabe was very pleased with the end product

Nativity Lapbook

Hannah and Dan finished their Nativity Lapbooks this week. They were so excited to see the finished product. This is a really good medium for the Littles as they love color, cut and paste activities. It gives them a real sense of accomplishment.

They started a new Lapbook on The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. Here they are working on sequencing cards for the life cycle of the butterfly.

Thanksgiving Lapbook

Here is Bessie with her completed Thanksgiving Lapbook. She worked really hard and did a great job.