Spice up your learning by making lapbooks!
Lapbooking can be done by any learner-- from preschoolers to adults. With this educational method, you make mini-books covering details that you've studied. After making a variety of mini-books about a larger topic, all the books are put together in a large folder. The finished product is called a lapbook because it's large and covers your lap.
The completed lapbook will serve as a review tool as your children refer to it over and over again. And if you have to keep a homeschool portfolio to document learning each year, lapbooks can be a very impressive addition.
Parlez-vous francais ? Cette information a ete traduite par Isableue sur Arboressences.
Sample Lapbooks
to give you the big picture

One of the best ways to understand lapbooks is to simply see them. These links will take you to pictures of real homeschool families' lapbooks. You can get an idea of how varied and flexible lapbooking can be. If you'd like a daily dose of bogging inspiration, visit the top lapbooking blogs and subscribe to them via feedreader or email.
- Praying Mother's Lapbooks
- Another Flickr collection of a wide variety of lapbook topics and from children of different ages.
- Jimmie's Lapbooks on Flickr
- The lapbooks we have made in our own homeschool are all posted at Flickr.
- Just Call Me Jamin's Lapbooks
- This mom is a lapbooking master! Her children make a lapbook about all kinds of topics from Passover to Chocolate!
- Sophia Christian Academy Lapbooks
- A very organized site with pictures of 12 different lapbooks. You will find lots of inspiration here!
- Duncan Homeschool's Lapbooks
- Here you will find pictures of their lapbooks, mostly created from purchased kits, along with websites they used for research.
- Our Homeschool Style: Lapbooking
- This blog is entirely devoted to lapbooks! This family has made lapbooks on bats, pets, dragons, hurricanes, butterflies, sharks, and much more!
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Lapbook Fever!
For more lapbooking videos, visit Lapbook Video Showcase.
curated content from YouTube
How Much Lapbooking Do You Do?
vote in this poll
After you've voted here, please scroll down to another poll about HOW you lapbook.
Flickr Photos Tagged Lapbooking
For more lapbooking photos at Flickr, visit the Lapbooking Group. And if you upload photos of your lapbooks to Flickr, consider tagging them "lapbook." They will show up here!
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byHow I Plan a Lapbook
Visit the Lapbook Planning page for details about how I plan a lapbook to go along with our curriculum. That page is complete with photos and a printable planning chart.
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How to Plan a Lapbook
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Once you understand the basics of lapbooking, you can easily plan your own lapbook to match whatever topic you are studying. You don't need to buy a kit, so you save money. And you can custom design the lapbook to reflect your children's interests a...
Making the Mini-books
the heart of lapbooking
A lapbook is simply a collection of minibooks affixed on a base.
As you are studying your chosen homeschool topic, whether it be Colonial America or Penguins, use the mini-books to reinforce or narrate what was studied. In this way you can make a mini-book every day or so. Once your unit study is over, you will have a nice collection of mini-books to mount into a lapbook.
If your child is very young, you can write or type the text for him. Many children enjoy typing the text for mini-books on the computer.
If your child is artistic, have him draw the graphics. But if drawing gives your child fits, then find some nice clipart for him to paste into the mini-books. Search the Internet for images related to your topic, or use some of the great links below.
What kind of mini-book should you use? In the beginning, start small. Make some basic books with easy folds, and add your information into them. As you gain experience, you can venture out into some of the more complicated mini-books. See the links below for online directions for many types of mini-books.
For you highly visual learners, I've created a Minibook Gallery with photo examples of many styles of mini-books.
An Easy Way to Start
Tackle a mini-book rather than an entire lapbook.
So, you're interested in lapbooking but really have no idea where to start. What to do? Well, you could buy one of the kits from a retailer, or you can start small - one mini-book.
Choose one of the "easiest mini-books" below and make a few blank books. Then give them to your children to add text and images. It can be something you've studied in science or history, or it could simply be a creative story.
Once you and you children see how easy one mini-book is, the creating will go on and on. Once you have several mini-books about one topic, affix them into a file folder or large pieces of cardstock folded into a book shape.
The Easiest Mini-books
baby steps toward lapbooking
- One Page Book
- The easiest book there is! You will be amazed that you can make a book with just one sheet of paper and a pair of scissors! Experiment with different sizes of paper or different colors.
- Layered Book (or Graduated Book)
- Another easy book made with paper folded and stapled together. Easy but impressive. Try different colors of paper to make a rainbow book!
- Accordion Book
- This site calls this book an unfolding book. But most people call it an accordion book. It can open it up, down, to the left or to the right. You can decide! This book is especially good for timelines, steps in a process, or a series of events.
- Flip Flap Book
- A good mini-book standby. Vary your paper size and number of "doors" to fit your topic.
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Directions for Making Mini-books
more options
There are a myriad of choices when it comes to mini-books. Add in colored paper in various sizes, and the options multiply!
- Making Books
- A short list of basic books with clear diagrams and instructions. A great place to start!
- Making Books with Children
- Directions for projects such as Who Am I Book, Index Card Book, and Step Book.
- Minibook Instructions for Lapbooking
- Another great place to start. This single PDF file shows seven different mini-books with clear directions and diagrams.
- Notebooking Pages
- Several mini-book templates with pictures.
- Mirkwood Designs
- This site offers templates for envelopes and cards that could be used as mini-books.
- Pop-up Book
- Be sure to go click NEXT to go through these four pages of directions for this fabulously easy but impressive mini-book. You can cut out paper shapes of whatever you're studying and attach them inside the layer pop-up. Add a cover made of another sheet of paper to the outside to finish it off.
- Flag Book
- This mini-book is a bit tricky, but the effect of the finished product is worth the trouble. This pdf file offers clear instructions with diagrams.
- San Diego Museum of Art
- The flag book PDF above comes from this site's education plans page. For several more of this type of advanced mini-books described with clear directions, scroll down to "Lesson plans for creating artistic books." You will find accordion book, flutter book, Japanese stab binding, pop-up book, star book, and tunnel book templates.
- Donovan's Templates
- Directions for several mini-books.
- Candle in the Window
- If you are still looking for more ideas, this is a very thorough list of links to even more mini-book directions.
- Art, Books, and Creativity
- PDF directions for seven types of books and paper folding projects. There is even a single PDF with directions for all seven! This site has the very fun and sophisticated tunnel book and flag book! There is also a new book I've never seen elsewhere -- a self portrait book.
- Fanbook Template
- This is a PDF template for a three part fan book. Make as many pages as you need for your minibook. Then use a paper fastener to connect all the pages at the bottom. This book opens like a fan. Store it in a pocket in your lapbook.
- Circle Book
- This is a PDF with directions for how to make a circle book.
- Envelope Book
- Another PDF file with directions for using construction paper and envelopes to make a book with pockets.
- Let's Book It
- Directions and templates (mostly in Power Point Format) for many mini-books are listed here.
- Three Square Mini-book
- It starts really small and opens really big. It uses an origami fold called the square base -- a bit tricky, but worth the effort.
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Making Mini-books from Online Software
for free, of course

With these online programs, you enter your data and your printer spits out a beautifully professional mini-book!
- Read Write Think Flip Book
- This is really neat! You can design a layered book (they call it a flipbook) of up to 10 pages online and print it! Using the computer may motivate a reluctant writer!
- ReadWriteThink: Stapleless Book
- This is an interactive tool for creating an eight-page book simply by folding and cutting. There is a front and back, so your book contents actually has six pages. You can choose the layout for each page.
Shape Books
free templates and patterns
After you see the adorable books, you'll surely want to make some of your own. Keep reading for links to shape book templates. Once you get the hang of it, you can make your own!

These mini-books are shaped as different things -- boats, apples, houses, trees. Choose a shape to go along with your lapbook's theme.
- Eduplace Shape Books
- A wonderful site for shapebooks! Patterns include barn, child, lion, mittens, shell, taxicab, treasure chest, and many more. These are PDF files and each shape has a pattern with lines and one without.
- Preschool Express Pattern Station
- Shape book patterns for house, pumpkin, kite, fish, cat, turtle, and many more.
- Teacher View Shape Books
- Shape book patterns for turkey, shamrock, egg, heart, top hat, and more.
- Simple Shapes Coloring Pages
- Free printable templates for simple shapes; make many copies and staple together for a mini-book.
- Story It
- Categories of shape book templates include animals, holidays, plants, shapes, nature, Bible, and more.
- Shape Books
- These shape books are Microsoft Word templates that you can type over and print.
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Super Easy Lapbook
A simpler How-to Page
If this page is a bit overwhelming to you, and you're thinking, "I'll never figure out this lapbooking thing," then try this easier how-to page I created for moms and teachers just starting out with lapbooks.
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A Super Easy Way To Begin Lapbooking : The Simplest Lapbook Ever
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So you've heard about lapbooking and seen pictures or videos of other people's finished lapbooks all over homeschooling blogs. You're intrigued and want to make a lapbook with your own children. But where to start? How can you transform that plain, b...
Other Pages About Lapbooking
I've made other lenses about specific lapbook topics which you can find at Lapbook Themes, linked below. Want even more? Visit Notebooks -n- Lapbooks-- a Squidoo group with not only my own lenses but those of many others.
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Notebooks and Lapbooks Headquarters
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Notebooks And Lapbooks note.book.ing (noht-book-ing) v. 1. The act of creating a portfolio of written narrations which are compiled in a binder for the purpose of education and documentation of learning. 2. A method of education, having nothing to d...
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Lapbooking and Unit Study Themes
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This page is guide to all my other pages of lapbooking, notebooking, or unit study themes. An entire list of all my pages here at Squidoo can be found on my profile page.
Graphics, Clip-art, and Maps
to decorate your lapbooks and mini-books.
We discovered a great timesaver that also makes the finished product more attractive: print your maps and images onto sticker paper. Then you can simply cut it out and stick it into the mini-book! No messy glue or tape!

- Karen's Whimsy -- Public Domain Images
- This site has a wealth of black and white images of traditional topics -- knights, renaissance fashion, flowers, angels, Ancient Egypt, victorian era, etc.
- World Atlas
- This is the greatest map site on the web! The choices are endless. If you need a map, you can find it here.
- DK Images
- Full color clip-art sorted by topic -- history, science, and more.
- Enchanted Learning
- This site has printables for almost any topic you might want to study!
- Utopia Portrait Gallery
- A selection of portraits of historical figures. The images in this collection are in the public domain.
- Discovery School Clip Art
- Nice gallery of clip art especially designed for educational uses.
- New York Public Library Digital Gallery
- This is not a cutesy clip art site but a serious, grown-up reference tool! You will find amazing images from many old books - everything from Ellis Island immigrants to art nouveau plants to military costumes. (Search this site with parental guidance; not all images are child-friendly or politically correct.)
- Clipart - ETC
- This is the clipart database of Florida's Educational Technology Clearinghouse. It has a nice assortment of black and white images from old books. Many historical and science related images!
- Clip Art by Phillip Martin
- Cute, cartoon style clip art images free for educational uses. Topics include Ancient Civilizations, Science, Math, Holidays, Native Americans, and Animals.
- Sources of Free Timeline Figures
- If you're looking for images of famous people or historical events, look at these online, free timeline figures.
- WP Clipart
- Use the search function to find free, public domain images for your lapbooking needs. (These images can be used for commercial use too!)
- Learning and Teaching Scotland
- A wide variety of royalty-free images and photographs for education.
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The Lapbook Base
mount all your mini-books onto a large folder

Some people use file folders, others use posterboard or cardstock. You can use any heavy paper folded into a shutterfold.
To make a shutterfold, mark the (vertical) center of a sheet of paper lightly with pencil. Fold the outer edges into the center mark, creasing well. Voila! A shutterfold!
What if you run out of room? Add extensions to your lapbook. Attach additional pieces of cardstock to the inside top or bottom so that they can fold outwards. Or attach two shutterfolds together.
- Folding Instructions for a Lapbook
- This site shows you clearly how to transform a file folder into the base of your lapbook.
- Using a File Folder as a Base
- This example clearly shows how the file folder was opened and refolded so that the top edges now meet in the center.
- A Picture of the Shutterfold
- This is an eagle lapbook that shows the basic shutterfold shape.
- Another Double Folder
- This is a double folder -- two shutterfolds attached together to make a super big lapbook. In these examples, bright orange, legal-size file folders were used.
- Portfolder
- In case you need another view of the double folder, here is another page with clear directions for using posterboard instead of file folders.
Lapbooking Supplies
Besides file folders, what else do you need for lapbooking? And what kinds of extras make an especially polished result?
I'm a firm believer in investing in craft materials to stimulate children's creativity.
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What Do I Need to Get Started With Lapbooking?
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If you're ready to take the plunge to use lapbooks in your curriculum, you should evaluate your resources. Do you have what you need to do it well? Where do you store your craft and art supplies? Do you have the essentials for lapbooking? Do you know...
Evan Moor Resources
Evan Moor Publishers' History Pockets and Literature Pockets series are great reproducible books for lapbooking. The publisher has allowed the entire Pockets series to be viewable at Google Books. (This service is to allow you to preview before you buy. The pages cannot be copied or printed.)
For a view of some completed projects, see this Flickr set by a homeschool family.
Projects are displayed in easy-to-make paper pockets, creating a comprehensive portfolio. Or you can affix them to a lapbook base. The book jackets shown here are only a sampling of the titles available in the Pockets series.
This thorough curriculum review of History Pockets at The Curriculum Choice has lots of photos too.
History Pockets: The American Civil War
This title is a NEW release! Look for the History Pockets: The Revolutionary War as well.
History Pockets: Ancient Rome, Grades 4-6+
Another brand NEW release!
History Pockets: Ancient Civilizations, Grades 1-3
I have this title in the series. It not only has reproducible mini-books and other paper projects, it is also full of factual information that will save you time researching. Here is a review by another homeschooling mom. She also includes photos of her children's work.
Lapbooking Resources Via Email
freebies right to your inbox
These email newsletters offer consistently good resources for lapbooking -- both complete lapbook kits and clipart.
Here are photos of my daughter with different lapbooks -- magnets, solar eclipse, and American Revolution.

- Yahoo Group -- Lapbooking
- Anyone who wants to lapbook starts here! This huge group is a massive powerhouse of experienced lapbookers. People are constantly sharing freebies, great links, free downloads, etc. through this group. This group is hosted by the "Premiere Lapbook Provider" Hands of a Child.
- Yahoo Group -- Lapbooking Made Simple
- This Yahoo group about Lapbooking is sponsored by Knowledge Box Central, a retailer of lapbooking kits. It's much newer and has fewer members than the Hands of a Child Yahoo group above, but is still a resource for lapbooking tips, delivered right to your inbox.
- Yahoo Group --Love to Lapbook
- This group is for providing alphabetized links to lapbooks on a variety of topics. The links are divided into free lapbooks and retail lapbooks.
- Yahoo Group -- Simply Lapbooks
- This is a group where the files shown on the Simply Lapbooks blog can be downloaded.
- Dover Publications Kid's Books Sampler
- Dover publishes great eductional books! If you sign up for this newsletter, each week, you'll get a link to free downloads of puzzles, activities, clipart, coloring pages -- all pages from their books. Download, save, or print.
- Dover Publications Sampler
- This is another Dover sampler, but it's not exclusively children's books.
- Dover Publications Design Sampler
- This Dover sampler focuses on clipart and graphics.
- CurrClick -- formerly Homeschool Estore
- This store sells all e-format resources. But every week, they offer a freebie! Every now and then it is a Hands of a Child complete lapbook kit! Other times it's notebooking resources that can be easily adapted for lapbooking.
Other Lapbooking Resources
Lapbooking can absolutely be done without buying any resources besides the regular school supplies you already have.
But Dinah Zike's books do offer a lot of helpful reproducibles and ideas. She is well known among lapbooking teachers and homeschoolers for her "foldables."
If you want to buy ONE book for lapbooking, The Big Book of Books is my recommendation. It has many ideas and clear instructions for mini-books and other projects. A great resource that I have turned to time and time again.
Look for it at Rainbow Resource or your favorite homeschooling retailer. Or scour the used books listings online. My favorite places are VegSource's Misc. board and Homeschool Classifieds.
Again, you don't NEED to buy any books to make lapbooks, but if you want the convenience of a book of directions or a reproducible book of images, these are some good ideas.
Giant Science Resource Book: Grades 1-6
This is a book I own and have used many times to find graphics for science related lapbooking. It includes these areas: life science, physical science, space science, and environmental science.
Beyond Mini-books
adding extras to your lapbooks
Besides mini-books, there are many things you can put into a lapbook. Consider laminating them so that they can be used again and again. You can put them into a pocket or envelope affixed to the lapbook.
Here is a list of some possibilities:
- Paper dolls or puppets
- Jigsaw puzzles
- Board games
- Charts and graphs
- Mazes, Crossword Puzzles, Word Searches
- Flashcards
- Realia - real things (coins, feathers, postcards, etc.)
Where to Find those Extras
- Paper Dali -- Historic Paper Dolls
- Free black & white printable paper dolls from various historic periods -- American Revolution, Ancient Greece, Saints, Ancient Egypt, Wild West, and more.
- Create a Graph
- A very sophisticated but easy to use online program for designing graphs with your own data! You can even save what you create in various file formats to use in other applications!
- Jigsaw Puzzle Template
- This is a GIF image that will help you make your own jigsaw puzzle to go in your lapbook.
- Discovery School's Puzzlemaker
- At this site you can custom design puzzles of all kinds related to your topic. The puzzles include the standbys of crossword puzzles and wordsearch puzzles, but there's more! Mazes, math square, number blocks, hidden message, and even more choices!
- Board Games
- Here you'll find links to blank board game templates that you can use to make games for any theme of study.
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Great Science Adventures Curriculum
for lapbooking science topics
This entire science curriculum revolves around reproducible paper crafts and mini-books. This is an ideal science curriculum for a lapbooking family! Or chose a title to supplement your existing science curriculum.
For a balanced discussion of this curriculum, see this Homeschool Library forum thread. (You do have to join the forum to read it though.)
For a thorough review, visit Eclectic Homeschool Online.
Features of Great Science Adventures:
* Multilevel teaching for K - 8
* 24 lessons, with one reproducible minibook for each
* Detailed explanation of all activities
It is suggested that you complete 2-3 lessons each week for an 8-12 week unit study.
Great Science Adventures the World of Tools And Technology
I have this title. It's a great resource for lapbooking! Not only does it have reproducible minibooks, it also has reproducible graphics and directions for making your own minibooks. We are using it as a resource for our physics lapbook.
Lapbooking is a Tool
a reminder
Remember, lapbooking is only a tool for learning. You are not studying lapbooking; you are studying weather or archaeology, for example. If the lapbook does not aid in learning important information about what you are studying, it's just busy work! So make sure that each mini-book your child makes is really something you find important for her to learn.
Of course some things you study and some of the things on your lapbook plan will not make their way into mini-books either because you ran out of time or you later decided it just didn't "work." That's okay!
Even if your lapbook has just four or five mini-books, if there was learning happening, then it's a successful lapbook!
Still have questions? Visit the Lapbooking FAQ page.
Where To Buy Lapbook Kits
if your creativity or time is short
- Hands of a Child
- As their website says, "The Premiere Lapbook Provider Since 2002." Their kits are downloadable e-books complete with graphics, directions, and pictures of the finished project. They offer lapbook kits on a wide variety of subjects and for many ages.
Hands of a Child ebooks can also be purchased from CurrClick. - Knowledge Box Central's Lapbooks
- This site has e-book, CD-rom, or pre-printed lapbook kits for history, math, art, foreign language, even home economics, and MORE.
Knowledge Box Central's Lapbook ebooks can also be purchased at CurrClick. - Live and Learn Press
- Another retailer of dowloadable ebook lapbook kits.
Live and Learn Press's Lapbook kits can also be purchased at CurrClick. - Homeschool in the Woods Time Traveler History Series
- Time Traveler CDs provide more than just a lapbook kit -- these are an entire unit study. A main element of the unit study is a lapbook that you create from the printables included in the lesson plans. Amy Pak, the artist who creates the Homeschool in the Woods timeline figures, has used her distinctive artistic style to create these unit studies. Her materials are not fluff but great research combined with excellent quality hands-on projects and mini-books.
- A Journey Through Learning
- Most of these lapbooks come with a study guide so you don't need to search out the answers yourself. You'll find all sorts of topics -- holidays, science, history, and more.
For a review of these lapbook kits, visit Footprints in the Butter. - Evan Moor's History Pockets (grades 4-6)
- These are not exactly lapbooks, but are similar and would be a good introduction to the activity. For a view of some completed projects, see this Flickr set by a homeschool family.All you need to create the pockets is included in the book. Includes titles on Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt, Colonial America, and more.
For the grades 1-3 History Pockets, visit this link.
Read a curriculum review pf History Pockets at The Curriculum Choice.
Evan-Moor's History Pockets can be purchased at CurrClick in ebook format. - Evan Moor's Literature Pockets (Primary)
- Similar to History Pockets, but the projects are about books and stories -- fables, folktales, fairy tales, and Caldecott award
winners.
Evan-Moor's Literature Pockets can be purchased at CurrClick in ebook format. - Stewardship's Unit Studies
- This site sells a title called Everything You Need to Know About Flapbooks. (Flapbooks is another name for Lapbooks.) It comes with a sample Flapbook which contains many different types of folds. The instruction booklet will take you step-by- step through how to make different folds, pockets and flaps. It also is full of ideas and ways to use Flapbooks.
- FIAR Fold-and-Learn©
- Five in a Row curriculum offers kits for some of the picture books in their curriculum.
How do You Lapbook?
Do you buy kits or do you prefer DIY?
Books from Scholastic and Teacher Created Resources
These two well respected publishers haveepublished several reproducible books that are easily adaptable to lapbooking projects. Click on the link to explore more similar options at Amazon.
U.S. History Little Books: Famous Events
NEW! This book features reproducible foldables about events in American history. Look for the famous people version at Amazon.
Easy Make & Learn Projects: Human Body (Grades 2-4)
I own this book and used it to create several mini-books for a lapbook on the human body. This is a great resource and is well worth the money. It's reproducible, so it can be used over and over and then re-sold when your children are past the suggested age frame. View a limited preview on Google books.
Easy Make & Learn Projects: Colonial America: 18 Fun-to-Create Reproducible Models that Bring the Colonial Period to Life
See the limited preview at Google books to see if this book is right for you.
Now That You've Finished
What to Do With the Lapbook?

Find a place to store you lapbooks where they can be accessed again and again.
We store our lapbooks on a shelf. And I've found that they get a lot of love! My daughter loves looking at them! And in that way, the learning goes on and on! She doesn't realize that she's reviewing facts that she's studied and already forgotten.
Other people store their lapbooks in notebooks or binders. Check out this clever way of using duct tape to do so.
We have often used them as a reference when we are studying. "Hmm.. what was the order of the digestive system tract? Hey, let's look in the Human Body Lapbook; we have a diagram of it!"
My daughter also enjoys showing them to visitors. What a great way to document the learning going on in your homeschool! A lapbook is a project that your child can be proud to show off time and time again.
Leave a Comment
or a suggestion
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Reply
- debraanne debraanne Oct 27, 2009 @ 6:17 am
- What a great idea - and I love all the pictures!
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Reply
- freetobe freetobe Oct 18, 2009 @ 6:24 pm
- I just stumbled upon lapbooks a few weeks ago. I am using them for my sixth grade math and science students. Awesome!
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Reply
- lasertek lasertek Oct 1, 2009 @ 9:23 pm
- This is fun! Great lens! I will try lapbooking one of these days. Thanks for sharing.
Btw, if you got the time, do visit my lens. Thanks again.
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Reply
- amy1980 amy1980 Sep 29, 2009 @ 5:54 pm
- I'm going to try this! I've never heard of lapbooking, but I can see the value. Thanks so much.
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