Lapbooks are paper manipulatives using file folders in which the student stores creative summaries of their work. Lapbooks can contain mini-books, printables, drawings and illustrations, diagrams, and other paper manipulatives customized to emphasize the subject of the lapbook.
Originally designed using paper manipulatives taught by Dinah Zike, author of Big Book of Books and the Big Book of Projects (affiliate links), lap books have been fine tuned and explained in depth by Tami Duby in her book The Ultimate Lap Book Handbook (affiliate link). I had the pleasure of seeing the lapbooks that Tami's children created from preschool to high school, and they are impressive and varied. Lapbooks give a child something tangible to show friends and family and every time they show them off, they are reviewing the material that they learned in that unit or topic.
Dinah Zike's science unit studies and Eagle's Wings curriculum (Considering God's Creation, God's Amazing Acts, and others) are excellent worksheets to use in lapbooks.
This video from Knowledge Box Central is a good visual explanation of lapbooking:
The following websites have some great information for those interested in creating lapbooks, including many photos:
Mini-books, Flaps, and Student Folder Websites - links to sites with instructions to make all kinds of mini-books and manipulatives for your lapbooks
Homeschool Helper Lapbooks - From Money to Chemistry, you will find a variety of lapbooks with printable pages at Homeschool Helper.
History Through the Ages - maps, timelines & timeline figures, and many more paper manipulatives for lapbooking all things history
Master List of Lapbooks (Homeschool Share) - Hundreds of lapbooks compiled by Homeschool Share
Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus - Information about lapbooking, notebooking and unit studies and is designed for the middle or high school homeschooler. There are also a number of resources for the elementary age homeschooler.
A Journey Through Learning - Topical lapbooks for all subjects and lapbooks for various popular homeschooling curriculum/programs; the video below gives more information about A Journey Through Learning's lapbooks.
Knowledge Box Central (affiliate link) - More lapbook kits for sale
Minibooks - A collection of minibook tutorials
WorksheetWorks.com - Create worksheets with the ability to select difficulty level. In addition to instantly generated files, there is a collection of graphic organizers under Miscellanea that are not only useful for thought organization but would work very well for notebooking and lapbooking.
Lapbooking 101 - This blog has a wealth of resources for lapbooking.
Lapbooking Groups on Facebook - Results of a search for lapbooking groups on Facebook (note that not all results relate to lapbooking as described above; other uses of the term may appear in the results)
