New to Lapbooking, old to homeschooling

[Rosabella]

H ladies. I have been homeschooling for 19 years! My youngest, and last, homeschooler will be 15 in March. She has been doing a correspondence curriculum, which is very good, as far as academics is concerned, but very, very dry..lots of memorization and tests. At one point, dd loved the structure and the textbooks, but is now becoming burnt out from it all.

My question is, is she too old for lapbooking? I told her about it and she seems excited! And isn't that what learning should be? Exciting! We are willing to stop the correspondence school asap and start free style homeschooling once again. This is more my style anyway, and the one I have used with all of our older, now grown, children. All of whom are doing very well, by the way.

So, as I look upon these great lapbook pages, I see mainly younger children. Are there many older lapbooking students out there. I can see how lapbooking would be great for even the oldest student, but I would love to see some actual lapbooks, or at least talk to other moms who have older kids who are lapbooking.

Thanks for reading all of this. Love this site. Peace and blessings...Rosa

[Pamela]

Hello Rosa! Older children do like to lapbook also - it's so fun and creative. My teenager says she wants to continue making them. Her style has changed over the past 5 years, but it is still lapbooking. Instead of the cutsie books my younger children use, she prefers real photos and bigger "mini-books". I have her include more writing, summaries, outlines of texts she reads, book reports, experiments, pictures, and so on. Whereas my youngest child especially likes the traditional style lapbook, she does a cross between a lapbook and notebook in a binder. Basically, anything that a student might take notes on in a traditional notebook can be put in a lapbook, just in a more creative way! If I ever figure out how to download pictures, I would love to show you what we've done!

The first time I ever heard of lapbooking was at a homeschool convention. Tammy Duby of Tobin's Lab had an unbelievable display of lapbooks that her children and students had made. WOW! Mrs. Duby gave a mini lapbook lesson to the moms. She showed examples of lapbooks from preschool to college! I don't think there is any limit to what you and your daughter can do with them. Some books that you may want to look into at her site are: Diana Zike - Big Book of Math; Big Book of United States History; Big Book of World History, and Big Book of Science. They are all are labelled for middle & high school level.

You may also want to check out Live & Learn Press. They have materials for the high school Apologia science series. We used the General Science one and enjoyed it. They have samples of each up to biology and chemistry to give you ideas how to make your own books.

There are several yahoo groups that focus on lapbooking. The ladies on these have fantastic ideas and resources, too.

Hope that helps a little. :) Pamela

[Johanna]

Hi Rosabella,
My daughter Rachel will be 12 in a few weeks. She HATES learning and she hates school. I have tried so many different approaches, and she has resisted them all. I am desperate for an alternative she will learn from and be excited about.
I have been disappointed too to find most lapbooks are for the younger students.
Rachel is a very ACTIVE, hands-on girl; I am the exact opposite! So the homeschool journey has been a definite stretching experience for me...
I would LOVE to do lapbooking with her, but I need guidance on how to get her excited about it and on practical working it out. I have found a few ideas for older students.
Let me know what areas you want to do; perhaps we can do something together and support each other.
Rachel loves horses and anything fashion...
I am Texas; where are you?
Blessings on your heart,

[Judy Alkema]

Rosa, and especially Johanna :)

There are so many sophisticated book-forms available to you - use what works and what will capture her interest! (Even, heretical suggestion, if it doesn't fit into a traditional filefolder lapbook form...)

Try having her create a 'style file' first - swatches and patterns of fabric, sketches of fashion designs, clippings from magazines, notes on various fashion vocabulary, etc. which are pasted into a black (spray-paint, scrapbook paper, etc.) filefolder. This could become a series of folders - 'Romantic', 'Ethnic', 'Men's-wear Inspired', 'Futuristic', 'Retro', and so on!

How about a 'Breeder's Cabinet' of filefolders for imaginary horses? She must create a picture (art), stats, bloodline (research, science of genetics), and write an imaginary history (creative writing) for each horse. Include eye and coat colours, behavioral traits, speed, etc. Then have her decide how she might match them (genetics, reproduction) up and how the cross results (colts or fillies, each of whom will need their own folder) would look and behave. There are a number of online games for preteen and teen girls which would complement this concept, some very complex indeed!

Have her experiment with different book forms that can be bound or pasted into a lapbook format:

- Japanese needle punch for a series of (horse-themed?) haiku or some fish prints 'silkscreens'
- spiral binding (any large business/copy store) for a stenog's notebook detailing her imaginary experiences working for a fashion magazine (a la 'The Devil Wears Prada - not that I'm suggesting she read the book... :) )
- stapled yellow lined pad, polaroids (or use the free-on-line Poladroid software to simulate), and crumpled scraps of 'clues' to create a lapbook about detective work
- flower seed packets (real or printed from the internet) cut neatly open at the top and pasted into a lapbook folder to make beautiful pockets to hold minibooks on each flower - a picture, growing details, the scientific name, whatever you like
- a shape book - cut the file folder's two outside edges in a rough hourglass - on good and bad 'diets', girls' body image, and eating disorders. At twelve, she'll be facing these concepts (if she hasn't already in the Western world) very shortly - prepare her with healthy images and let her see how many unhealthy and manipulated ones surround her. (Try the short movie from Dove, online, about how an average face is turned into a billboard model...)
- do a lapbook on jewelry design over the ages, from Celtic cloak pins through Hopi silver/turquoise pendants, Egyptian earrings and Dior chokers. Use sequins, silver/gold puff paint, and flatbacked 'gems' (dollar store) to create a stunning 3-D cover graphic - use shapebooks inside (a large oval to display different pendants, semi-circle pages fastened at the top to show off necklaces, a standard rectangle pad stapled at the side for brooches... and so on...

I'm a bit of an unschooler, with the motto 'whatever WORKS' - and imagination rules!

Hope these ideas work for you!
Judy

[Terri Juliano]

I started this year using lapbooks and my oldest is 15. I have been using a traditional text book type of curriculum for the past three years and was a little unsure how my children would take to this approach. My youngest is 11 and we all love the lapbooks. Yes, there are lapbooks for older children and you can use the younger ones but make them to fit your needs. The best place I have found is Hands of a Child they have so many older kids books. You can also go to Live&Learn Press. I like to take the mini books and turn them into more of a research project for my older boys. Even the lapbooks you find here can be adapted to fit any age. I find that the more imaginative you get the more fun that lapbooking can be. God bless and Have fun, Terri J

[Pamela]

I just found these - they can be used as a sample for higher level lapbooks. --- Science Lapbook
Samples

[Rosabella]

wow..thanks so much! these look neat! you mentioned in the earlier post the Tammy Duby of Tobin's Lab had lapbooks from the older grades. I did a search to see them, but found none. Is there a link to these, or you only saw them in "real life"?

also, thanks for your earlier reply and thanks to you too Johanna and Teri. My dd and I are very much looking forward to this new way of learning. I will be checking in on this site a lot! :)

Johanna..we are in New York. and yes, my dd loves fashion also. We once took a library book out showing the history of fashion which was interesting. If we were doing lapbooks at the time, I can see how it would have fit into that.

I hope you all have a blessed New Year. ttys....Rosa

[Pamela]

Sorry, I only saw the lapbooks made by Tammy's family and students at the convention. I wonder if she would email you some photos of her books. She gets so excited about showing them, that she might give you information about them. Many of her ideas come from books on her site - I noticed that there are only pictures of the texts, and not the lapbooks themselves. (Bummer!) The books written by Dihan Zike and Tammy are wonderful! They helped me get started - for example, American History. I think at one time she also had some sort of DVD class to start people out. ??

[Rosabella]

Good morning..thanks Pamela...I think I might email Tammy and ask her if she could send me a photo or two of her advanced lapbooks.

Have any of you ever tried Notebooking?? I have been reading about this option also. Rosa

[Melanie]

Hi Rosa. I will probably combine some lapbooking ideas with mostly notebooking. Seems to me that if you use cardstock as your pages, you could easily add mini books to the pages to make it more interesting. I'm also learning about digial scrapbooking for my oldest. Happy hunting!

[Pamela]

Rosa,
Yes, we use alot of notebooking along with lapbook materials. She takes notes of what we are studying and puts it in a 3 ring binder. I use some notebook pages that I find on the web, some that I make up, and this year for the first time, she wanted to design her own sheets for some things. Then, when we find or create a lapbook mini book, she glues those to cardstock and sticks them in the binder. It is so much more creative and fun to study than an old traditional notebook!

The following has links to all the very best notebooking info to research if you are interested. Notebook Tutorial There are also several Yahoo notebooking groups which offer suggestions and pictures. They are all very good.

I would enjoy working with a whole bunch of ladies on Advanced Lapbook Learners to colaborate on creating teen lapbooks and notebook ideas and / or units. Anyone game???

Pamela

Rosa - I wanted to tell you, it is very comforting to read above about your grown children doing well. It will give me encouragement to keep going when I feel like, "Why am I doing this?".

[Rosabella]

Hi ladies! Melanie..that sounds like we are going to do too..combining. since we are new to this, i suppose it is up to my dd to see which she likes better.

Pamela...I am glad my post encourages you! Thanks! I too have said to myself "why am I doing this?" but the thought only lasted a minute or two. Yes, there are flaws to homeschooling, BUT all one needs to do is to look at the flaws of schools...public or private and inspiration soon returns. Homeschooling is the best.

I am happy to say that dd is really excited about starting her "new" school day today. As I mentioned earlier, she is enrolled as a correspondence student with a really good school but we just got burnt out from all of the reading texts, study flash cards, take the test, move on to the next chapter....yuck....so much dry memorization with no time left for real learning or, horrors! fun! :) so we are leaving it behind and trying something new. That is so great about homeschoolling, isn't it? The opportunity of being able to step back, look at what is working or not working and being able to make changes? Love it!

Well, I hope you all have a great day and I will keep you posted as to how our notebooking/lapbooking is going.

Peace and blessings...Rosa

[Judy Alkema]

Oooops, I wound up posting my answer in the middle somehow. Hope no one will mind if I post it again.... it's got ideas for everyone, but particularly Johanna and Rosa (original poster!)

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There are so many sophisticated book-forms available to you - use what works and what will capture her interest! (Even, heretical suggestion, if it doesn't fit into a traditional filefolder lapbook form...)

Try having her create a 'style file' first - swatches and patterns of fabric, sketches of fashion designs, clippings from magazines, notes on various fashion vocabulary, etc. which are pasted into a black (spray-paint, scrapbook paper, etc.) filefolder. This could become a series of folders - 'Romantic', 'Ethnic', 'Men's-wear Inspired', 'Futuristic', 'Retro', and so on!

How about a 'Breeder's Cabinet' of filefolders for imaginary horses? She must create a picture (art), stats, bloodline (research, science of genetics), and write an imaginary history (creative writing) for each horse. Include eye and coat colours, behavioral traits, speed, etc. Then have her decide how she might match them (genetics, reproduction) up and how the cross results (colts or fillies, each of whom will need their own folder) would look and behave. There are a number of online games for preteen and teen girls which would complement this concept, some very complex indeed!

Have her experiment with different book forms that can be bound or pasted into a lapbook format:

- Japanese needle punch for a series of (horse-themed?) haiku or some fish prints 'silkscreens'
- spiral binding (any large business/copy store) for a stenog's notebook detailing her imaginary experiences working for a fashion magazine (a la 'The Devil Wears Prada - not that I'm suggesting she read the book... :) )
- stapled yellow lined pad, polaroids (or use the free-on-line Poladroid software to simulate), and crumpled scraps of 'clues' to create a lapbook about detective work
- flower seed packets (real or printed from the internet) cut neatly open at the top and pasted into a lapbook folder to make beautiful pockets to hold minibooks on each flower - a picture, growing details, the scientific name, whatever you like
- a shape book - cut the file folder's two outside edges in a rough hourglass - on good and bad 'diets', girls' body image, and eating disorders. At twelve, she'll be facing these concepts (if she hasn't already in the Western world) very shortly - prepare her with healthy images and let her see how many unhealthy and manipulated ones surround her. (Try the short movie from Dove, online, about how an average face is turned into a billboard model...)
- do a lapbook on jewelry design over the ages, from Celtic cloak pins through Hopi silver/turquoise pendants, Egyptian earrings and Dior chokers. Use sequins, silver/gold puff paint, and flatbacked 'gems' (dollar store) to create a stunning 3-D cover graphic - use shapebooks inside (a large oval to display different pendants, semi-circle pages fastened at the top to show off necklaces, a standard rectangle pad stapled at the side for brooches... and so on...

I'm a bit of an unschooler, with the motto 'whatever WORKS' - and imagination rules!

Hope these ideas work for you!
Judy