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Above & Below: Pond Unit Study, Hands-on Ideas, & Lapbook (Nature Book Club Link Up 8)

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Whether you study a pond in winter or summer, a pond unit study makes for a great hands-on science project. You can add in so many different nature topics.

There are just as many things that grow above a pond as there are that live below in a pond.

Pond Unit Study and Lapbook

Look at these resources that I gathered up for a pond unit study and then I have a nifty lapbook for you too. Like most all of my unit studies, I give you ideas for Prek to High school.

Looking for a fun and free multiple age Pond Unit Study and lapbook? You’ll love these resources whether you study a pond in the winter, summer, spring or fall. Check out this what is above and what is below in a pond homeschool unit study and free awesome lapbook. CLICK HERE!!

Ron’s pond scum. Neat site with pictures taken through a microscope.
Life in a drop of pond water.
Earth’s Kids – ponds and wetlands science.
A virtual pond dip.
Pond science.

Water holes to mini-pond lesson plan.
Who lives in a pond minibook.
At the pond for the littles.
Pond scum microorganisms.
Small pond creatures.

Pond water web.
Pond life identification.
Let’s visit a pond PreK lesson plan.
Pond animal life printout.
15 Swamp Craft & Activity Ideas.

Missouri pond handbook. Neat resource with lots of information.
Pond ecology.
Pond Theme Activities – Stem – Free Printables
What’s in this water.
Pond life theme for Prek.

Pond Hands-on Ideas

Plastic bag pond.
Explore a pond.
Tadpoles and frogs.
Free land and water form cards.
Wide mouthed frog craft printable.

Pond Sensory Bin.
Cattails craft.
Coffee filter lily pad.
Duck craft handprint.
Pond Dipping Spotter Form.

Pond And Stream Science Activities For Kids.
25 Water Hands-On Activities for Kids.

Above and Below in the Pond

Life in a Pond.
Nature Study: A Week at the Pond.
Identifying pond animals.
Life in a pond study guide.
Studying pond creatures.

Spring to life ponds teachers guide.
Learning Places Pond Unit.
Teachers Guide to Wetland Activities.
Beaver’s teachers guide.
Vernal Ponds: Seasonal Habitats for Wildlife. 

Cattail – this edible plant is also an excellent source of weaving material, tinder, and insect repellent.
The Pond Ecosystem.
The Food Chain in a Pond.
Macroinvertebrate Match-Up Cards.
Wetlands Ecosystem teacher’s guide.

When we did our unit study, I used one book that we had and one book that we wanted.

One book I have because it has easy hands-on activities. It’s the book Rivers, Ponds, and Lakes (Collins Nature Explorers) and the one I had to have is Pond Life: Revised and Updated (A Golden Guide from St. Martin’s Press) because it’s packed with so much information about pond life.

Together these two books made for a great pond study.I was SO pleased with this tiny little guide packed with a HUGE amount of information.

Literally, this guide could fit in a shirt pocket. It’s the perfect size to take to study a pond, stream, or other wetland area.Besides having colorful illustrations which are not goofy looking but perfect for the science-minded, it is chock-full of facts about plants and animals of the pond.The chapters like Characteristics of Water, Habitats, Food Webs, Observing and Collecting, and then Plants and Animals. The plants and animals sections are divided into groups along with pictures of each group.

I’m really pleased with this little guide Pond Life: Revised and Updated (A Golden Guide from St. Martin’s Press).

Then the second book, Rivers, Ponds, and Lakes (Collins Nature Explorers) is one I have and we used it to because it has fun outdoor activities.

A few of the activities are build your own backyard pond, use light to catch fish, and race snails.The chapters in this book are Freshwater habitats, Puddles, Ponds and Lakes, Rivers and Streams and Boggy, soggy swamps. We love the one above about collecting skins and mud tracking.

How to Test Pond Water – Older Kid Outdoor Science Lab

We loved reading and studying about pond life.

There are many fun things to do for younger kids, but one thing we did for an older kid for older kid to make it more of a lab is to use a water testing kit.

The water testing kit came with a mini notebook, a cool TDS meter, vials and test strips.It’s a great way for learning about the water and in your area and to do a lab with an older learner. You’ll want to find 4 different water sources. We used the ditch in the back of our house, the creek from the local park on our walk, bottled water, and tap water.The instructions are on the chart and it gives you an order in which to do the tests.

We checked each sample for chlorine/copper/nitrate/nitrite, then alkalinity/pH/hardness, and lastly the iron.

And yes I know sometimes you don’t have a pond you can get to, but you can get to your backyard for some science. You’ll love this fun hands-on science!
Backyard Science ebook

And another resource we love for nature studies are the NaturExplorers. Look at this one about ponds.


I think you’ll love this next free lapbook in my nature series which is about ponds.

Download this Free Lapbook in my Facebook Group – Homeschool Dynamics by Tina Robertson. 
Be sure to answer the questions asked when you click to join. I need to be sure you’re human.

(Note: This is a facebook group only freebie.
Please do not email me telling me that you’re not part of my facebook group or don’t have facebook.
Just like I have special freebies for my loyal blog followers I have freebies for facebook followers too.)

Are You Ready to Party?
Welcome to the Nature Book Club Monthly Link Up No 8.

The Nature Book Club is a monthly link up beginning on the 20th day of each month.

It’s a monthly book club devoted to connecting children to nature.

Also, join our new Nature Book Club Facebook Group!

Nature Book Club theme for August: Water (Streams, Rivers, & Ponds)

The Nature Book Club is brought to you by these nature loving bloggers which are your co-hosts!
Are you following them? If you don’t want to miss anything, be sure to follow each one.

Seasonal Pond Study and Printables from Barbara at Handbook of Nature Study
Sensory Bin and Observation Notebooking Page from Jenny at Faith & Good Works
Pond Life Printable Pack from Emily at Table Life Blog
Aquatic Science Studies: 10 Activities for Teens from Eva at Eva Varga
Online Book Study about water cycle from Dachelle at Hide the Chocolate
STEAM Challenge – Does Water Ever Flow Up? from Erika at The Playful Scholar
Who Was?® What Was?® Where Is?® Book Series: Where is the Mississippi River? from Sharla at Minnesota Country Girl
River Exploration and Frog Catching from Thaleia at Something 2 Offer

Upcoming theme (September): Prairie Flowers

Party Rules

  • Choose an engaging nature book, do a craft or activity, and add your post to our monthly link up.
  • The link up party goes live at 9:00 a.m. EST on the 20th of each month and stays open until 11:59 p.m. EST on the last day of the month. Hurry to add your links!
  • You can link up to 3 posts.
  • Please do not link up advertising posts, advertise other link up parties, your store, or non-related blog posts. They will be removed.
  • By linking up with us, you agree for us to share your images and give you credit of course if we feature your posts.That’s it!
    Let’s party.
  • Find us #NatureBookClub


Looking for a fun and free multiple age Pond Unit Study and lapbook? You’ll love these resources whether you study a pond in the winter, summer, spring or fall. Check out this what is above and what is below in a pond homeschool unit study and free awesome lapbook. CLICK HERE!!

You’ll love these other resources:

Hugs and love ya,

 

From Egg to Sea Turtle Nature Unit Study & Lapbook (The Nature Book Club Link Up 4)

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

From Egg to Sea Turtle Unit Study & Lapbook

We made a detour on finishing up high school for a quick nature read about sea turtles. I chose Our Sea Turtles as a spine and we weren’t disappointed. Today, in sharing from egg to sea turtle nature unit study and lapbook, I’ve rounded up some awesome links and ideas for you.Also, I created a fun lapbook for about upper elementary to middle school for your kids. Of course, you can decide what ages to use the lapbook for because I never make my lapbooks baby-ish. I use cursive font and avoid baby-ish or goofy looking clip art the best I can.

First, let me show you how much we loved the book Our Sea Turtles. It is a 282 page reference book with beautiful color pictures on each page.

It has several sections, including:

The Species, Sea Turtle Form and Function, Life Cycle and History, Ecology, Our Sea Turtles on Land, Our Sea Turtles in Water and Saving our Sea Turtles.

One thing we learned right away that we did not know was that not all turtles in salty waters are sea turtles.
Sea turtles are truly marine animals and one of the things that makes them different is their shell. Sea turtles don’t really have the ability to pull in their head and limbs inside although they can still withdraw their neck.

Although we know that sea turtles are mostly herbivores, we did learn that they won’t pass up some easily captured prey.
Also, we learned about some of the predators of the sea turtle. The Northern raccoon, ghost crab, fire ants, laughing sea gull, bobcat, fish crow, dolphinfish, crevalle jack, tiger shark and bull shark a few of the sea turtle predators.

What was really interesting was learning what was inside an egg. Sea turtles have an amniotic egg.
The features of a sea turtle egg include a papery eggshell that protects but is porous (to air and water vapor), and an allantois (fetal membrane) which facilitates respiration and helps with waste.
The yolk sac supplies nutrients for the embryo and it shrinks as the turtle grows.
What we didn’t know was that the amniotic sac is like the equivalent to the placenta in mammals.

Sea Turtle Lesson Plans, Guides, and Background Information.

Along with reading the book  Our Sea Turtles I really loved a lot of these resources.

This Sea Turtle, a Journey of Survival 12 page educators guide I found super helpful and used a lot of the information from here to do the lapbook. So be sure to download the guide to use for the lapbook.
This 22 page pdf educator’s guide has a great roundup of vocabulary words.
Grab this fun coloring page with crossword puzzle activity.
You love this Sea Turtle Inc. site for lots of lesson plans and hands-on ideas like make a sea turtle habitat, make a magnet sea turtle for older kids (cool), and a template to create your own hatchling for younger kids. So cute.

Then here is a free discussing and activity guide to use with the book Sea Turtle Science which is also good.

This 9 page elementary school guide has some great question and answers or facts about sea turtles.
A super nice 180 page educator’s guide with printable lab cards and hands-on ideas. Nice!
You’ll love this massive 160 educator’s guide One Ocean from National Geographic on who lives in the ocean which includes background information on sea turtles.
Grab this beautiful and colorful sea turtle poster.
Use these free maps to add in some geography to your unit study as you learn about tracking the sea turtles.

This Grenada Fun website has a wonderful graphic for teaching the  parts of a sea turtle along with background information. It’s the one I used for making the minibook in my lapbook.
You’ll love this ultimate sea turtle guide.
Look at this fun prek sea turtle unit study over at Homeschool Preschool.

Sea Turtle EASY Hands-on Ideas and Activities

Easy Hands-on Math Build a Geometric Turtle @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

There is a fun and easy build a geometric turtle activity that is in the  Sea Turtle, a Journey of Survival  guide I shared above.
Build an origami turtle.
Grab all these wonderful printables over at U.S. Fish and Wildlife like fact sheets, coloring pages and posters.
Look at this fun hands-on idea for the littles over at Munchkins and Beans to learn about sea turtle life cycles.
Make this clay sea turtle over at Buggy and Buddy.

Make fun egg carton sea turtles over at Crafty Morning.
I love this easy sea turtle paper plate life cycle craft at Wikki Stix.
I love this tin foil turtle for some art.
Nice coloring pages and make great covers for your lapbook although I have created some for you too.
Sea turtle templates for sewing.

What a fun keepsake – do a hand print turtle craft.
Make a 3d turtle craft.

Sea Turtle Media:

How Baby Sea Turtles Find their Way Home.
This is a great graphic for Sea Turtle Facts.

Then also, our unit study reminded us of the co-op we had where my sister brought a turtle shell Native American craft made by one of her Native American friends. I love when we have a tie in to what we learned before in one of our co-ops.

Then of course a family visit to the ocean is a great field trip.

The Galveston coast near us had these new and beautiful benches that are part art and part bench.

Local schools got to decorate them with facts about the marine life that live in the ocean. It not makes for a beautiful enhancement to seawall, but a fun way to learn facts.

I think doing a mosaic like this would make a great art project too.

You’ll love this lapbook.

You’ll want to grab my free Sea Turtle lapbook and this is a facebook only follower freebie.

Be sure you join my Homeschool Dynamics by Tina Robertson facebook group.

Grab this FREE Sea Turtle Lapbook | Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

The minibooks include:

What Makes a Turtle a Sea Turtle?
7 Species of Sea Turtles layered book.
What Are the Sea Turtle Parts?
The Anatomy of a Sea Turtle.
Sea Turtle Tagalongs trifold book.
From Egg to Sea Turtle Life Cycle Circle book.
The Struggle to Survive.
Predators petal book.

Click here to grab my free Arctic Squirrel Lapbook

If you’re looking to do any spring nature studies, you’ll want to get a few of the NaturExplorers. I love those studies for multiple ages.Our Journey Westward

Welcome to The Nature Book Club Monthly Link Up No 4.

The Nature Book Club is a monthly link up beginning on the 20th day of each month.

It’s a monthly book club devoted to connecting children to nature.

There is a theme for each month in 2018. We welcome your nature book and activity related links!

The Nature Book Club theme for April: Eggs

The Nature Book Club is brought to you by these nature loving bloggers which are your co-hosts! Are you following them? If you don’t want to miss anything, be sure to follow each one.

Here are the co-hosts, their choices of books, and activities for the month.

 

Bird Nest/Eggs nature study pages from Barb at Handbook of Nature Study

From Egg to Sea Turtle Unit Study & Lapbook from Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Free Gustav Klimt Artist Study Pages from The Usual Mayhem

Felt Bag Handicraft from Wind in a Letterbox

Clay Eggs Project from Table Life Blog

An Online Book Club choice from Hide the Chocolate

Egg Scavenger Hunt with an Egg Carton from Rule This Roost

A Mermaid’s Purse: A Surprise Discovery Within from Eva Varga

Citizen Science – Nest Watch from Eva Varga

Egg Identification Nature Bingo {Free Printable} from Freshly Planted

Eggs Nature Study Free Printable Word Search from Faith and Good Works

From Egg to Sea Turtle Nature Unit Study & Lapbook. Grab this fun sea turtle lapbook for your middle school kids and these easy hands-on activities and ideas to bring your homeschool science to life! CLICK HERE to grab it!

You’ll also love these other nature studies:

Upcoming theme: May The Nature Book Club Theme – Wildflowers

Party Rules

  • Choose an engaging nature book, do a craft or activity, and add your post to our monthly link up.
  • The link up party goes live at 9:00 a.m. EST on the 20th of each month and stays open until 11:59 p.m. EST on the last day of the month. Hurry to add your links!
  • You can link up to 3 posts.
  • Please do not link up advertising posts, advertise other link up parties, your store, or non-related blog posts. They will be removed.
  • By linking up with us, you agree for us to share your images and give you credit of course if we feature your posts.That’s it!
    Let’s party.


Free Arctic Ground Squirrel Lapbook & Unit Study Resources (The Nature Book Club Link Up 2)

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Nature study in the winter can be fun and it doesn’t have to be complicated. We decided to add to our Arctic and Inuit Unit Study by doing an Arctic ground squirrel lapbook.

Also, I’m excited today because it’s time to link up for The Nature Book Club.

First, grab these resources that I know you’ll love and to help you with a Arctic Ground Squirrel Lapbook and Unit Study.

It wasn’t easy finding many books, but the one we used was real helpful.

Arctic Ground Squirrel, About the Tundra, & Other Helpful Resources

Fact Sheet.
Background information. This one will help you to fill out the lapbook.
Arctic Ground Squirrel background information.
Resilience of the brain of the Arctic Ground Squirrel.
Squirrel slumber.

Natureworks.
Skulls of Alaskan Mammals. 71 page pdf guide with great facts for not just squirrels but other mammals.
Furs of Alaska Mammals. 74 page pdf guide
Alaska Tundra Wildlife. This is a HUGE 251 page download with pictures, cards, and background information to talk about the tundra.
Snowy Activity.

General Squirrel Resources

Coloring page for an older child.
Craft – make a squirrel from leaves (cute)
Squirrel lapbook for younger kids
Craft- Squirrel Paperplate
Squirrel Poem

Origami Squirrel (too cute)
Squirrel Dot to Dot
Learning Contractions? – Match squirrel word cards with the acorn contraction
The Busy Little Squirrel Unit Study

Click here to grab my free Arctic Squirrel Lapbook

If you’re looking to do any spring nature studies, you’ll want to get a few of the NaturExplorers. I love those studies for multiple ages.Our Journey Westward

Welcome to The Nature Book Club Monthly Link Up No 2.

The Nature Book Club is a monthly link up beginning on the 20th day of each month.

It’s a monthly book club devoted to connecting children to nature.

There is a theme for each month in 2018. We welcome your nature book and activity related links!

The Nature Book Club theme for February: Winter Birds and Nests

The Nature Book Club is brought to you by these 10 nature loving bloggers which are your co-hosts! Are you following them? If you don’t want to miss anything, be sure to follow each one.

Here are the co-hosts, their choices of books, and activities for the month.

Small Worlds Preschool
The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin – Peg doll squirrel and owl

The Usual Mayhem
The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin – Beatrix Potter artist study printables freebie

Rule This Roost
Build, Beaver, Build! Life at the Longest Beaver Dam – Beaver Habitat Building

Hide The Chocolate
Stellaluna – Bat Online Book Club

Table Life Blog
Nuts to You!  – Easy Watercolor Squirrel Art

Eva Varga
Our Foray into Squirrel Taxidermy –  Taxidermy

Wind in a Letterbox
Meerkat Mail – Postcard Art Activity

Handbook of Nature Study
Tracks, Scats, and Signs – Nature Walk-Looking for tracks, scat, and signs

The Playful Scholar
The Groundhog Day Book of Facts and Fun – Good Reads For Fun On Groundhog Day.

Everyday Graces Homeschool
Frederick by Leo Leonni – Watercolor bookmarks and nature notebook page.

You’ll love the giveaway we have this month!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

If you're studying about the tundra or the Arctic Ground Squirrel, you'll love these fun and easy resources. Get the free Arctic Ground Squirrel lapbook and unit study resources. Click here!!

The Nature Book Club theme for February: Small Mammals

Party Rules

          • Choose an engaging nature book, do a craft or activity, and add your post to our monthly link up
          •  The link up party goes live at 9:00 a.m. EST on the 20th of each month and stays open until 11:59 p.m. EST on the last day of the month. Hurry to add your links! 
          • You can link up to 3 posts. Please do not link up advertising posts, advertise other link up parties, your store, or non-related blog posts. They will be removed.
          • By linking up with us, you agree for us to share your images and give you credit of course if we feature your posts.That’s it!
          • Let’s party.


Colorful Winter Bird: Northern Cardinal Lapbook & Unit Study

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.


I have several awesome things today for you. First, I have a fun hands-on unit study and Norther Cardinal lapbook. Also, I’m co-hosting for our first the nature book club link up. More on that fun in a minute.

Colorful Winter Bird Northern Cardinal

It’s easy to see why young and old fall in love with studying the Cardinal for nature.

It’s such a beautiful and bright bird during winter and because it doesn’t migrate, it’s a great bird to study really at anytime.The Northern Cardinal bird is such a beautiful and bright bird during winter and because it doesn't migrate, it's a great bird to study really anytime. Click here to grab this free Northern Cardinal Bird Lapbook and Unit Study!

Here are some things you’ll love to enhance your unit study.

Grab this one page pdf with helpful information to study about the cardinal.
Grab this four page pdf with facts and information.
Introduction to nature journaling 16 page nice download.
Northern Cardinal coloring page.

Northern Cardinal Lapbook

Upcycled Hanging Bird Feeder.
Life in a Nest.
Free printable cardinal craft.
Another coloring page.

Yarn wrapped cardinal.
Cardinal in the winter hand art.
Free bird nature study printables.
Step by step easy tutorial to draw a cardinal.

Free coloring page of a Northern Cardinal that would make a great cover for your lapbook or just for fun.
And one more great coloring page.
Black and white clip art to add to the outside flaps of your lapbook or to add to your notebooking page.
Craft – make a cardinal in a pine shadow box.

Northern Cardinal Field Guide.

And these are the two books we used which are Wild Bird Guides Northern Cardinal and Cardinals.

Also, we have been using this Beautiful Birds Unit Study. I know you’ll love it.

Look at these other fun things!



Here are a few more ideas.

Toilet Paper Roll Bird Feeder Craft.
Birds Printables.
Bird communication 22 page pdf download.

 

The Northern Cardinal bird is such a beautiful and bright bird during winter and because it doesn't migrate, it's a great bird to study really anytime. Click here to grab this free Northern Cardinal Bird Lapbook and Unit Study!

I think you’ll love these other unit study ideas

The Nature Book Club is brought to you by these 15 nature loving bloggers which are your co-hosts! Are you following them? If you don’t want to miss anything, be sure to follow each one.

Here are the co-hosts, their choices of books, and activities for the month.

Something 2 Offer
Birds, Nests, and Eggs Nest Scavenger Hunt

The Usual Mayhem
The Boy Who Drew Birds Free artist study set (John James Audobon)

Preschool Naturally
Whose Nest Is This? Nest Building Activity

Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus
(Backyard Bird Series) Cardinals – Free Northern Cardinal Unit Study & Lapbook.

Rule This Roost
Fine Feathered Friends: All About Birds – DIY Bird Feeders

Hide The Chocolate
Those Darn Squirrels Fly South – Free online book club.

The Homeschool Scientist
Birds, Nests, and Eggs – Make a Suet Feeder

Forgetful Momma
Snowy Owls Snowy Owl Craft

Table Life Blog
A Nest is Noisy – Art Project.

Eva Varga
Ravens in Winter: Nature Study Activities and Lessons for Teens –  Winter Bird ID

Wind in a Letterbox
Birds for Beginners in Southern Africa – Nature Journal Entry

Rainy Day Mum
Coming Home – Needle Felted Robin

Handbook of Nature Study
Backyard Birds Field Guide for Young Naturalist – Backyard Bird Nature Study

The Playful Scholar
Backyard Birds of Winter – How to Make Hanging Suet Ornaments

Freshly Planted
Nests – Nest weaving 

The 3 BEST and WORST Things I Like About Lapbooks

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

There is no comparison of lapbooks to digital enhanced content today, but there may be competition. Bring it.

When I started homeschooling, I stuck CDs in the computer and I controlled the digital content that my children were watching. After being introduced to lapbooks, I knew it was a learning tool that could be a contender to digital content.

My affection for lapbooks, however, was not immediate. At first glance, I assumed it was a learning tool that was opposite of what I thought learning should look like. The lapbooks seemed more like a crafty project and waste of our learning time with all the cutting and coloring.

Today, I’m sharing the 3 best and worst things about lapbooks because I want to be sure when you try one, you have less stress.

3 BEST THINGS ABOUT LAPBOOKS

ONE/ If your child wants a whole to pieces look at topics, he’ll love lapbooks.

Information can be arranged in a lapbook to give a child a quick glimpse of a topic. That’s the point. It can be as general or as detailed as you or your child want it to be.

I love details, but when I teach I also can overwhelm my sons. A lapbook allows us to add minibooks or facts to remind my kids of the major teaching points I want them to remember.

TWO/ If your child does better with a mastery based approach, lapbooks allow him freedom to master the material that piques his interest.

Another lure of lapbooks is that if you have an independent learner, he doesn’t always want a lot of direction when his curiosity has been piqued.

Lapbooks incite an uncontrollable urge to research and add more information that your child wants to learn. It gives an independent learner freedom to learn what he wants to.

One of the best things about this step is that he has to learn to organize that material so it fits compactly into a minibook or chart. That is a higher level skill.

That technique has been one of the things I’ve liked most about lapbooks. Our kids amass so much knowledge. But instead of using rote memory to tell it back, they need to learn how to connect it to other topics they know.

Understanding comes from manipulating the information and categorizing it.

Because the books are small, a learner has to manipulate and extract key points. In a setting that seems more fun than work he learns to organize his information.

THREE/  No amount of digital content can rival your child’s own work for a masterpiece that lasts into adulthood.

When my older two sons look back at their learning journey, they haven’t mentioned any learning app, but they do remember the hard work put into their lapbooks.

Not only is it a learning tool that they used for constant review, but it’s a project worth keeping.

3 WORST THINGS ABOUT LAPBOOKS

I almost stopped doing lapbooks because I fail into traps that most new lapbookers do.

ONE/ Lapbooks can turn crafty project if you allow it to overtake your day.

I admit it. I wasn’t all that much into crafts. I’ve come a long way since I first started using lapbooks.

Now, I realize the value of allowing children creative outlets and try to look past the mess.

If you and your kids love crafts this won’t be a negative for you. For me and my sons, we focused too much on the crafty part of the lapbook instead of the research part of it.

I soon learned that minibooks didn’t have to be all designed by the kids. We could use some premade ones.

TWO/ Lapbooks can be expensive because we do like color pictures and clip art.

If you only use black and white pictures and have your children color them all, you can save some money.

But in the process you may create a lapbook hater if you have kids that don’t really like coloring.

Coloring by younger children for the most part is enjoyable, but as they grow, emphasis needs to be on clip art and pictures that inspire a learner to dig into the information.

Cardstock, printers, and colorful clip art costs money. If you have multiple children, it can cost a bit more.

Although it can get costly, I also remember that we will have a tool that lasts almost a lifetime. And lapbooks can have flips and flaps added to it each year as your child grows.

It costs something to have a portfolio for my children’s work other than a bunch of boring stapled worksheets.

Lapbooks have been worth every penny, nickel, dime, quarter and dollar I spent through the years to have something my children can look back on that they had a hand in creating. What a worthy investment.

THREE/ I’m not a patient person either. I don’t like the prep work.

If coloring is one gripe then right behind that is my gripe for the time it takes to prep the minibooks.

Through the years, I’ve learned a few tips. I don’t have us sit down at one time and do all the minibooks at one time. By doing one or two each day, I can help each child and it doesn’t become too overwhelming to prepare one or two each day.

Also, unless I’m teaching a course in fine motor skills, I’ve learned to cut some of the minibooks on my own time. My kids seemed more impatient than me and having to cut out all the minibooks just seem torture.

Although I still don’t like the prep work, I see the value of having it done before we sit down to work on the lapbook. Emphasis is put on the content instead of cutting.

Now, I will print and cut out some of the minibooks on my time. I kept each of my kids’ books in separate ziploc bags.

By storing each kids’ books in separate ziploc bags each kid can add special things he discovers to his lapbook when he puts it together. One of my sons found a shed snake skin and kept it in his ziploc bag until he put his lapbook together.

Lapbooks are not time wasters but a good use of time. It’s a fun and interactive way for kids to remember information. Whatever digital curriculum comes, it just can’t equal the time each child puts into preparing a lapbook.

A premade book or digital curriculum is no comparison to a handmade interactive tool made by your child.

I have over 30 free lapbooks here on my site organized by time period. You want to give one or two of them a try?

You’ll also like these other articles:

The 3 Best and Worst Things About Lapbooks. Lapbooks are not time wasters but worth your time. You'll love the over 30 FREE Lapbooks on this site. Come on over and try one or two.

Hugs and love ya,