Any lapbookers out there? Last year, Ben and I put together several lapbooks around our literature-based unit studies. He loves them. He loved making them, he loves showing them off, he loves pulling them down from the shelf and looking through them. But that was last year. Lapbooks are easier to do when you have a specific theme you are working on.
So this year, I needed to figure out a way to “lapbook” without really traditionally lapbooking. We are still using a unit study approach this year with MFW-ECC, however our “unit studies” will cover 15 countries across every continent. MFW suggests using a 3-ring binder approach, but that method just isn’t “lapbooky” enough for me. So instead, we’ll be putting together several notebooks, lapbook style. Enter Barebooks!
I’m just getting all of this figured out…..how may notebooks will we need, what kind of notebook do I purchase, how many pages must it have?
So, of course the first question to answer is, “how many notebooks do we need.” (I’m literally thinking aloud as I type this, attempting to answer this question right this moment)
#1 is easy. We’ve already began our Animal Studies notebook and soon I’ll share some pictures with you. We’ve completed our study of desert animals and are almost finished with ants. We’ll be looking at 15 different animals/groups of animals this year. The notebook I chose to use comes from Barebooks and is a spiral-bound book. You can view the actual book here. We are using the 10inx12in/32 page size. The quality of these books is amazing considering how cheap they are. Ben decorated the front of his Animal Studies book with a map of the US and animal stickers. I covered it with clear contact paper to protect it. We’re basically using the same minit books we would use in a lapbook, just placing them into the notebook instead.
#2 I’m having trouble deciding if I want a notebook for each contintent, where we can go into a little more depth with each country or if just one notebook covering all of the continents in a broader way would be best. It would certainly be more work to do a notebook for each continent. So I think I’m leaning toward just a general “geography” type of notebook, with general info about each continent. I think the same Barebook spiral-bound book will work for this as well.
#3 We’re doing the God’s Design for Life books on The Animal Kingdom and Plants (you can find links to these books on my sidebar). I think I’ve decided to just divide one book in half for our activities related to these books. Again, the spiral-bound Barebook should work fine here.
#4 Copywork. Now this book I am very excited about. And yes, it’s another Barebook. In addition to the spiral-bound books, they also have these really nice fully-bound books. You can purchase these books in 3 different sizes. They also come plain or in a myriad of designs (for the smaller book only). You can buy them lined or unlined. The lined-page books only have lines on 1/2 of every other page. However, you can purchase line guides or templates for the unlined books. Bingo! we have a winner!
#5 Because I did really like the 1/2 page lined books, I decided they would make great nature notebooks for our Creation Club. We’ll be meeting once a month for nature hikes, with a different theme each month. These books will work well for that. I could also toss a couple of extras into the order as well. I think they’ll be fun should Ben decide to write a book this year. I’d like to encourage that and these would be perfect for writing and illustrating a small book.
So, if I’m adding correctly, that makes 5 notebooks, right? What am I leaving out?
I may end up needing something for Spanish (we haven’t started yet), but at the most, probably just a book with a line guide. These books are so cheap, I’ll order a few extra.
Of course, there will be the occasional lapbook too. In fact we’ve just finished up an Olympics lapbook. But for the most part, I think my Barebooks are going to work out quite well. We’ve already been making items to go inside them, so we have a bit of catching up to do. Thankfully, next week is our “catch up” week that I schedule about every 6 weeks or so. We have notebooks to fill, pictures to take, and blog updating to do. So stay tuned….there’s sure to be more to come!
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