The Diary of a Wimpy Lapbook...not really!

The lapbook is an amazing tool, that I just didn't get until we did one ourselves. Monkey looooved it and I never realized how many different components come into play while making the book. You have a lot of Science <--the subject we chose to do our lapbook on, writing, reading, research, art, computer skills, and story telling.



The lapbook to me is difficult to describe for me. Basically it is a tool that you can use in conjunction with your current study topics, in any subject. We were covering the chapter in the REAL Science for Kids - Level 1 that is on the butterfly. We read and learned about the butterfly and then she was able to put all the different components that she learned into a book with different areas. She was soooo incredibly empowered by this!

If you have noooooo idea what the heck I'm talking about...check out this website! Lots of sites have information about lapbooking, but this site is one of my favorites for newbies.



The basics on making the larger part of the book.





Here is the site where I downloads a couple template pieces. Since this was going to be both of our first lapbook, I wanted to give her a little direction. She is advanced in science, so her favorite part was all of the research and the drawings with labels.



The first 2 pictures are what she started with...

These pics are of her final lapbook. You can see where she used the topics and ran with them. She included butterfly picture cards, some of her favorite facts, life cycle diagrams and more!

All of the little details that she put into it.

We are going to try to do one every couple of weeks and tie it into either a social science or science topic. I really did underestimate the value of this tool!

1st week of homeschooling in pictures...

Okay, and maybe a few words too! Sorry the pics are not the best. They are all iphone pics...couldn't find camera!!

Starting with breakfast! Monkey opted for waffles.

First day as an official 3rd grader! We set her up in a corner of the home office.

The lapbook project - Butterflies <---more on this soon!

Great monthly calendar, that she can update every day and a weekly calendar, so she knows what her daily assignments are.

This is the only "stage" we got to in our tot activities. Then he proceeded to take the whole crate and throw the pieces all over the room. That was soooo much fun picking up! He may still be too small. It was fun though!

I bought foam multi colored squares and circles from target for $1 each and the plastic shot glasses were a set of 4 for $1 at Target too.

The activity is great for hand eye coordination, stacking, pouring, and a bunch of other stuff he made up himself. Simple. but Bean loved it!

It was truly an amazing first week!