Lap Booking {and Timeline} Questions Answered

I’ve had quite a few questions over the past few months about Lap Booking, so I thought I would post my answers here for anyone else who might be curious.  If you have any other questions to add, please leave them in the comment box and I will do my best to answer them as well. 

“The quality of the cutting, pasting, coloring amazes me. Do your children do it all themselves, or how much do you assist?“

I do help my children with some of the cutting.  I’d much rather my children spent their time working on the content on the Lap Books.  I also assemble the base for the lap books (the file folders and any additional pages).   They do the rest of the pasting and all the coloring themselves.

“How did they learn to cut so well?”

Lots of practice. Our children love to cut up paper to create little projects, books, etc, which I often find all over the house.  It sometimes drives me crazy! 😉   We also have a paper cutter (an older version of this one) that we use all the time.

“Where do you buy your colored file folders?” 

Locally at Staples, or online from Amazon.  I have purchased a few 100 count boxes (including this box of assorted primary file folders) and probably have enough to last a very long time!

“Do you use just regular glue sticks for the pasting?”

Yes, glue sticks work wonderfully.   We go through a lot of glue sticks in our home!  I always stock up during the Back-to-School sales in the fall.  We also use some double sided tape as well.    Oh, and also regular tape or packing tape to attach extra pages.

“Does the history CD include all the lapbook components as printables?”

All the products we have used made by Homeschool in the Woods have been amazing!  So far my boys have completed their New Testament Lap Book, and New World Explorers Lap Book, and a Colonial Life Lap Book, using the mini-books found on the corresponding Time Travelers CD-Roms.   These CD-Rom’s are a little on the expensive side (I’ve purchased most of ours discounted on Amazon) but worth every penny!   Homeschool in the Woods is not a Catholic company, and I haven’t used or read through any of the included lesson plans that also come on the CD’s to be able to tell you if they contain any anti-Catholic material, but the mini-books are so detailed and well made, plus I can easily modify our Lap Books to add a bit of Catholic History as well.   (We added Our Lady of Guadalupe to our New World Explorers Lap Book and Inspirational Catholic of Colonial Times to the Colonial Life Lap Book.)   The CD-rom’s also include creative writing activities, recipes, time period craft instructions, file folder games, and so much more.

{Merchant Marauder Game made by Rascal using printables from the New World Explorers CD-Rom}

“Do you print everything out and do just one or two elements of the lapbook per day, or do you have large chunks of time devoted to it periodically?” 

Both. Depending on how organized I am at any given time, I will pre-assign certain mini books to go along with what they are reading that particular week. Towards the end of each unit we do end up spending a whole afternoon, or two, finishing up any projects/mini-books that are not yet completed and then assembling the lap book. Oh, and I do try and print out everything we will need for the whole lap book at one time…

However, I quickly learned that there is absolutely no need to print out EVERYTHING, like I did when we first started creating Lap Books!  Now I just scan through the documents on the computer, if we are using a purchased lap book with various options, only printing the select pages that are needed for each particular lap book.  This saves so much ink and paper!

“We like lapbooks here as well but I find it’s a lot of work to try and get mine to focus on the whole process and not just the end result. Maybe they need to get older?”

We had that same problem when we first started making lap books.  Over time I found that if I begin with just assigning one or two mini-books at a time (instead of a whole lap book project), in addition to some corresponding picture books/reading material, it isn’t nearly as overwhelming.  That way it is much easier to focus on each topic and before you know it you have everything you need to assemble your lap book!

“How do you store your children’s lap books?”

Even though it make not seem like it, we really don’t make all that many lap books.  The ones we do make we spend plenty of time on, really making them worth the extra effort.   My children are all very proud of each one of their lap books and just love to pull them out and share with any visitors that come over.  Up until now, one magazine file box for each of the boys, and one for the girls to share, has been plenty.   Probably sometime this year I will pick up 3 more, so the boys will each have two and the girls will each have their own.   We keep them on a bookshelf in the school room, right next to our Draw Write Now and Draw and Write Through History Collections.

“Do you have any other hints so we can get our lapbooks to look that good?” 

Also, since I do assign the mini-books individually, we store them in gallon sized ziplock bags until each unit is completed and the Lap Book is ready to be assembled.    This really helps prevent the individual mini-books from getting lost or damaged.  I also oversee and help (when necessary) with the layout and assembly.   

“I was looking at that same timeline book recently, so I wanted to ask how you like it… does it include enough space for every century? Is it in a 3 ring binder so the pages can be taken out or more can be added as necessary? Do you have one for the whole family, or does each child have his own?”

I would have to say that not only do I like our timelines, they are at the very top of my list of favorites.   I LOVE these books!  Each of our school-aged children has their own Record of Time, and Chiquita received one this year.  She was very excited!  (They are available directly from the publisher, Amazon)

The beautiful 3-Ring Hard-Cover Binder measures 12″ x 9″ and lays flat when open.  It comes with 122 ivory colored cardstock pages which are dated from 5000 BC to 2025 AD, as well as an additional 17 pages of maps and a signature page to personalize the Record Book.

For the most part they create their own illustrations (rather than using pre-printed timeline figures) to add to their timelines.   They will continue adding to their books each year, creating quite the keepsake by the time they graduate!

You can find links to our various completed Lap Books here.