Lapbooks

Last week and this week have been "grace weeks" in school due to travel and sickness. School has gone on, just at a slightly more relaxed pace. One of the great things about homeschooling is that illness doesn't necessarily mean the learning stops. If we have to take a sick day it's because we are really sick!

Today I spent several hours making our first lapbooks with the kids. Elizabeth made one about butterflies and Silas wanted to do ants. Sarah glued miscellaneous pictures and papers to cardstock and she is so pleased with her "lapbook" too. I have no idea if we did it "right" and I'm sure there are as many ways to lapbook as there are people who do it. If you've never heard of it before, here is a YouTube video that shows more. (I just realized that the examples on the video are butterflies and ants. My kids saw the video so I guess that is where they got the ideas. But it didn't sink in till now. Funny!) I know a lot of people invest a lot of money in lapbooking kits, but I honestly don't see why you can't make your own with a bit of creativity.

The kids loved it, but it was actually really stressful for me, I suppose for the same reasons I don't scrapbook (time, mess, perfectionism...). And also I found myself saying about 5 million times, "Sarah, don't touch the scissors. Sarah, don't touch the glue. Sarah, leave the paper alone. Sarah, get off the table." She wasn't really being naughty, just curious and wanting to join in what we were doing. But a 2-year-old with scissors and a glue stick is just scary.

Anyway, Billy has the camera so I'll have to wait to show pictures till tomorrow.