Life as I Know It: Lapbooks (with photos!!)

    One of my children's favorite things to do is lapbooks. For those of you unfamiliar with lapbooks, just google the term and you'll find more info than you can possibly stand. I think one of the reasons they love them so much is the interactive ways we've come up with completing our information gathering. At the end of each lapbook, we google online games that corresponds with what they've been learning and the games are both fun and educational.

     The first lapbook we did this year was on animal classification. From there, we naturally progressed to the human body and basic anatomy. Then, I asked my kids what they wanted to learn more about and I'll admit it, I got some pretty interesting answers! We ended up going with Dakota's pick: bridges. We learned about engineering, engineers and every kind of bridge you can imagine! We ended that lapbook with googling the closest covered bridge in our area, and I really didn't anticipate coming up with much of anything in SC. I was floored to realize the only covered bridge in SC was less than 45 minutes from our home and was over 100 years old. We spent an afternoon last week making that trip and really enjoyed the day. As a side note: my kids actually recognized the truss system that was used on our local covered bridge from our lapbook studies! How cool is that?!

     We're now firmly ensconced in a weather lapbook that has been the source of much fun this afternoon. While tornados aren't much funsies in real life, the interactive gaming that goes with learning about them is a blast! We've learned all about clouds, hail, fog, dew, frost, and air pressure. We're learning about storm seasons across the US and hurricanes and why they're named alphabetically. We're even learning what to do in case a mudslide happens to occur near us. I'm thinking the Palmetto State is relatively safe from that, but you never know, and I tend to view knowledge like chocolate. You just can't have too much, right?

     Anyway, I'm feeling pretty random today and one of my most frequently asked questions is what my day is like. So, there you go. That's what today was like...or at least a 45 minute section of it. Lapbooks are something every homeschooling family should partake in, in my opinion. Education and fun don't have to be exclusive from one another.

     If you're looking for ideas on lapbooks, here's the best website I've ever found if you don't want to put much work into the templates, or come up with your own ideas:   homeschoolshare.com.   Enjoy!

P.S.   I know this isn't my typical post....but everyone needs a mental break sometime, right?    ...grin...

Below are some images of my 4th graders Animal Classification lapbook. She's my little animal lover, so this was her favorite.