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Basic Lapbooks 

A picture is worth a thousand words, so if you're not sure what a lapbook is, take some time to look at these lapbook examples.

For more photos of lapbooks, visit the Flickr Lapbooking group.

Common Features of Lapbooks 

Lapbooks can be as individual as the students making them, but here are some common characteristics of most lapbooks.

• minibooks or foldables -- small books with interesting folds and flaps that just beg to be opened.
• all minibooks focus on a central topic
• minibooks are affixed into a file folder (or cardstock) folded into a shutterfold
• lapbooking offers the opportunity to be creative with colors, folds, graphics, drawings, etc.
• lapbooking is highly graphic -- lots of images, drawings, shapes, colors, and pictures.

Standard Notebooking Pages 

For more notebooking pages, visit the Flickr Notebooking group.

Common Features of Notebooking 

Notebooking is very flexible, so a notebook can contain most anything! But for the sake of explanation, here are some things most people could agree that notebooking commonly has.

• Sheets of paper, three hole punched and put into a binder or a pre-bound notebook of lined or unlined paper.
• Text is written by the student.
• The page has graphics of some kind-- drawn by the student or pre-printed on the page.
• A notebook could very broad -- history, science, poetry, nature, 5th grade, etc.
• Notebooking is highly text oriented -- lots of written words with graphics to complement them.
• Notebook pages can be narrations from your child's reading, copywork, maps, quotes, poems, images cut from magazines or printed from the Internet, drawings, and writing assignments.

Combining Lapbooking and Notebooking 

the best of both worlds

Lap-n-Note for Rocks in His Head

This blog entry has a slideshow of images taken of their lap-n-note for the book Rocks in His Head. For the pictures (not slideshow) visit this link.

Combine Lapbooks and Notebooking

You've got to visit this page! A great example with clear photos of how to combine a lapbook with notebooking! Very nifty!

Little Homeschool on the Hill

Here is a creative way to put lapbooks into notebooks by using duct tape!

View from the Hill

In this entry, these homeschoolers use a clear page protector and paper fasteners to add notebooking pages to a lapbook. Great photos make her instructions crystal clear.

Daniel Academy's Maya, Inca, and Aztec Notebook

"It's not a lap book, it's not a notebook, I guess it's lap/note book thingy...or I'll just call it a folder book." A great slideshow and explanations.

Peakmore Academy's Examples

Wow! Here is another site you've got to visit if you're wanting to combing lapbooking with notebooking! Amazing photos. Scroll down to see more and more.

Homeschooling His Way

Explanations and photos of how this mom incorporated lapbooking elements into her notebooks.

Snapshots of Our Lives Blog

The classic picture book Harry the Dirty Dog is the topic of this lapbook/notebook combination!

Shades of Pink Blog

This blog entry is Sheri's notebooking FAQ. She uses spiral bound scrapbooks for her children's notebooks. And inside the notebooks there are lots of lapbooking components. Click on the Five in a Row book titles in the left column to see specific examples of their work.

The Wonderful Story of Easter

In this post by Jamin, you'll see how any notebooking page can be made into a a minibook by simply folding it into quarters! Brilliant!

Mixture of Lapbooking and Notebooking 

notebook page with a minibook

notebook page with a minibook

notebooking pages affixed into lapbook

notebooking pages affixed into lapbook

notebooking page with minibook

notebooking page with minibook

Notebooking page with matchbook minibooks

Notebooking page with matchbook minibooks

So, What Do You Think? 

Which one should I use? 

When choosing which to use -- lapbooking or notebooking -- here are some things to consider.

• Lapbooks are generally more suitable for smaller projects that will have a definite end to them, for example a unit study (the orchestra, volcanoes, or the rainforest) or a time period within your history curriculum (Colonial America, Ancient Greece, or New World Exploration).



• Notebooking, on the other hand, is often used when a topic or project is more ongoing and will have more related documentation.



• Many people transition from lapbooking to notebooking as their children age.



• Some people think that lapbooking fits a more creative child. Certainly, lapbooking does offer a lot of chances to be creative with colored papers, fancy folds, and artwork. But notebooking can be equally as creative. But if your child despises cutting, pasting, and drawing, you may want to avoid lapbooking or modify it to limit how much of the "crafty" part the child himself has to do.



• Some homeschoolers find certain topics lend themselves better to notebooking or to lapbooking.

The bottom line is that you won't know until you try. So, attempt a bit of each one and choose which one best suits your children.

Books from Amazon 

Fun Foldable Projects for Young Scientists

Amazon Price: $13.50 (as of 07/06/2008)
Used Price:

The Big Book of Reproducible Graphic Organizers: 50 Great Templates to Help Kids Get More Out of Reading, Writing, Social Studies and More

by Jennifer Jacobson, Raymer Dottie

Amazon Price: $10.36 (as of 07/06/2008)
Used Price: $6.99

Giant Science Resource Book: Grades 1-6

by Jo Ellen Moor

Amazon Price: $26.99 (as of 07/06/2008)
Used Price: $16.25

Literature Pockets, Greek & Roman Myths, Grades 4-6

by Evan-Moor Educational Publishing

Amazon Price: $14.99 (as of 07/06/2008)
Used Price: $59.05

Guestbook 

LilliputStation Molly just completed a lens on combinig lapbooks and notebooks that you might want to include here. http://www.squidoo.com/LapNotebook Melissa Posted May 14, 2008

Sheri

Thanks for linking to me! This is a great tutorial.

Posted April 20, 2008