I’ve made no secret about the fact that my children and I love lapbooks. In fact, if I would allow my kids to do nothing but lapbooks for school work, they would be happy campers. Instead, we focus on one or two lapbooks per quarter and work on them a little at a time. Right now the twins and I are working on Letters, Numbers and Shapes from A Journey Through Learning. I decided to try something a little different this time.
Am I the only person who cannot stand the whole “folded file folder” thing? Having the creases in the “wrong” place on those file folders drives me crazy. Not to mention, they don’t store well and they don’t last long because they are so easily bent up. I know you can find all kinds of information on the web about how to store your file folder lapbooks and I know lots of people who love making lapbooks this way. My kids even like it. I just don’t.
I decided to try something different this time. Instead of refolding several file folders to make our lapbooks, we took six pieces of cardstock to Office Depot and had them spiral bound with a larger-than-necessary spiral binding and plastic cover. This cost me about 75 cents per child. The result is an easily storable, slightly protected lapbook in the color of each child’s choosing.
My boys are very happy with the result! I went ahead and made one for the older kids too, so that we can start working on lapbooks as soon as I am finished working on Letters, Numbers and Shapes with the twins. That might be a while, because we are still carefully cutting out pictures from magazines for each letter of the alphabet. Caleb is going to start putting together Earth (also from A Journey Through Learning) and Anna hasn’t decided yet.
Do you keep your lapbooks in folded file folders or in something else?
This makes so much sense! I could even DIY this since I have a comb binder!
Come share this at my Pinterest Party, will you? We can’t be the only ones with fold OCD! 😉 https://www.adventureswithjude.com/search/label/Sunday%20Sharing
I didn’t get into lapbooking until recently, partly because of the file folders (same issues with storing them) and partly because we do unit studies and I generally pull materials in from lots of different sources. I started using lapbook elements that I like (so I can customize them to my boys’ skill level) and we adhere them to cardstock, then the pages are added to their notebooks where all of their work is stored by subject. Those big double folder file folders seem to big and cumbersome for little ones to freely explore once they are done.
THANK YOU!! I love the hands on approach with Lapbooks but hate the folding and storing like you said. This is amazing and I will be doing this for my kids! I didn’t even know there was lapbooks for preschoolers. Learned 2 things today!
I agree with gabrielle. I use cardstock and glue/tape the lapbook elements to them and 3 hole punch the cardstock and put it in our 3 ring binger in the appropriate supbject. I like this so I can have everything together for the subject for easy review and keeping.