We wave good bye to Chele, who used to bring us the Homeschooling Resource of the Day. She has moved on to bigger and better writing projects. However, her resource of the day blogs were so popular, I decided to bring them back and revamp them a little. You will find now that the resource of the day blog will focus on one theme. If there’s something you’d like to see covered or you need more resource for a project you’re working on. . .let me know!
Today’s theme is built around resources for lapbooking, and notebooking. I realize that it’s not exactly a children’s theme but every once in awhile, we moms need all the help we can get.
#1. Enchanted Learning
Enchanted Learning is a website that has tons and tons of worksheet type resources. From book reports, to animals, from English to Spanish. . .it’s pretty much all there. The reason they are especially great for lap booking is because they have a whole slew of pages on just about any theme you can imagine, with blank spaces to label, and activities to do.
#2. In the Hands of a Child
This is a company that sells pre-made lapbook kits on a variety of themes. I have not actually used one. I have however, heard very good things about them. If you’re not the super creative, crafty type but want to do the lap booking thing, this is a good route to go.
#3. Tamy Duby and Dinah Zike
Tamy Duby, of Tobin’s Lab is actually credited with coining the term lapbook. Let me just say that if you ever get the chance to hear her speak, it’s worth going. She has written the Ultimate Lapbook Handbook and of course, I highly recommend it. Dinah Zike is a teacher who has also created several manuals on how to create booklets with children.
#4. Valorie’s Tip: Lapbooking with Preschoolers
With my older children I find that I can store all of the booklets in a baggy until they’re ready to put the finished product together. With my preschoolers however, I find that they want to play and look at their finished product as we go along. So instead of true lap booking, I tend to do note booking. It is essentially the same thing except that I’m storing their finished booklets in a notebook and they are able to look at their work so far. This seems to be especially important to them when we work on big projects like we’re working on now. . .like the alphabet.
#5 Getting Started
Want to plan your own lapbook and can’t quite figure out how to get started? To do a lapbook based on something you’re reading. . .read in small chunks. Then at the end of the day, ask your child to tell you what the important concepts are. Include vocabulary words, ideas and people, places or things. Each day store that work away. When you’re finished with the book, you’ll have all the pieces to put together a finished product!
Disclaimer: At the time that this post was written, all of the links and websites were to content and materials that are appropriate for a family audience. However, due to the nature of the web, I highly recommend that you visit links and websites on your own first without the children!