lapbooking is so time-consuming!

[Prov31Sandra]

Hey, I put together some beautiful lapbook/scrapbooks with my kids this week, but it seems like it takes twice as long to do FIAR now, because of writing and documenting for the lapbook, (Not to mention I am a scrapbooker so I couldn't deal with a basic markered, glued thing...)

All that to say we will *not* be doing lapbooks/scrapbooks for every book. It's really nice but it sure did take extra time. I would say the time we spent on the lapbooks that we would not have spent with just FIAR activities is going to be about 3 hours this week.

That's a lot when every minute is crunched.

:oP

But they sure are looking nice so far.

[Kelly in Kentucky]

I feel the same way. In this stage of my life and schooling, I just cannot fit lapbooking into our schedule. Maybe we will find the time when my younger children are older. Lapbooking is nice but it is not a requirement ~ Praise God for that! :)

[Amee]

We have only done two, but that was my experience, also. I also have to say that lapbooks seem to bring out the control freak in me, which is not good for our relationship. :(

My son recently asked to study ancient Greece, and I bought a unit from Hands of a Child. It was really interesting and turned out nicely, but it took us FOREVER because my son is a slow writer and his hand gets tired quickly. (I wanted everything to be in his handwriting, but next time I might have him dictate some of it to me instead.) Each topic took at least three times as much time as I had planned on, because he had so much to say. He did enjoy it and wants to do more lapbooks, but there is no way we could do one every week.

[Hannah in N.Ireland]

I had been trying recently to do a lapbook for each book we rowed (one book every 2 weeks).We have taken a bit of a break over the summer,and I agree lapbooking is ALOT of extra work.
I am planning from september to keep a notebook instead as I do like to have a sort of record of what we have done, but lapbooking was becoming quite stressful for me as I have to do all the cutting and sticking!

[Paige P]

I'm not sure how you did yours or not, but I found it helped for me to make sure that any colored pictures, maps, crafts (that were glueable), etc. were all cut out each day that we've done them. If we do a craft that isn't glueable, then I take a picture of the child with the craft and print it out (somestime just on regular paper). I do have them narrate the story to me, and I type it out. I DO NOT have them writing a whole lot in it at this point (well, dd2 couldn't if I wanted her to). At this point, it's MUCH more a "memory book" of FIAR than a fancy lapbook/scrapbook/notebook. The "record" of what we've done is in one place, but the detailed journals, etc. are not there, but it's not what my 6 and 4 year olds are doing at this point.

If you're interested in lapbooking as a "record" instead of a *show*, then I encourage you to try it the "easy" way. My girls LOVE having this "scrapbook" of their FIAR studies, but it's truly NOTHING fancy. I think that most of the ones that are really intricate have mainly been done by the parents. I want my girls' to be records of what THEY'VE done.

If I get a chance later, I'll post a few pictures of what we've done. Believe you me, they're not show-stoppers, but they're great memories :)

ETA: I decided to go ahead and upload some pictures. We've worked on Before books this summer.
Here's My Big Green Pocketbook:
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x196/pppoland/DSC00205.jpg
This shows that we talked about the Fruits of the Spirit and made "fruit baskets." The girls summarized the story of the lost coins from the Bible. We made the contents of the pocketbook (and some stuff got lost).

and here are two from Katy No Pocket
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x196/pppoland/DSC00207.jpg

http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x196/pppoland/DSC00208.jpg

There's a colored Australian flag, the map of Australia, pictures of the kids in their aprons, the colored picture of the kangaroo, etc. The most time-consuming item (for my part) was making the "lift the flap" Animal Classification sheets, but that was important b/c we spent a lot of time making our AC boards and classifying all the animals, so I wanted that in there.

Again, as you can see, it's not fancy at all, but it truly is the work of my children, not me, and it's a great way for them to remember what we've been working on (and is a nice way to show other people some of the things we do). I will add that we do "a lot" more -- lots of crafts and lots of discussion and things from the manuals, but I don't journal all that in their books for them -- way too much work on my part. Now, there may be things that I want noted, which I will do, but until they are able to do most of that stuff on their own, it just won't be in there. I LOVE the concept of lapbooks but I'm not going to do all the work; I have enough on my plate :)

[ami*]

When we were creating our Mirette lapbook (http://homeschoolblogger.com/walkingbytheway/360315/), I was all fussy about it. I never said anything to ds, but the cover of his Complementary Colors book looks :p to me. (I can't belive I just admitted that on a public forum...just being real). Anyway, I bit my tongue and let him do his own thing. After all, it's his work.

I told myself that it's all about the *learning* NOT all about the lapbook! I cut all the books out ahead of time. He cuts/pastes the items into the books. We spend maybe 15 extra minutes each day on the lapbook component. I definitely don't have him do everything in his writing. We already have handwriting first thing of the school day...I have him write main things (this week he wrote answers to the personification-character questions, and he'll write the two vocab. words but I'll write the definitions for him). I think I'm even going to let him use ABC stamps to write Mike Mulligan on the front. It's still learning! ;)

Also, we aim for just 6-8 minit books a week in our lapbook. I don't worry at all about lay-out and design until the final day when we put it all together. My son is so proud of his books. My dad came over today and my ds showed him his square minit and his character minit for Mike Mulligan. He explained everything very well (except the definition of a square! LOL).

One more thing, for longer coloring projects (like the French Circus in the Mirette book or like the Construction Vehicles book we are doing for MM), I spread them out over a few days. I make it the last part of school and ds can sit there and color all day long if he likes with no help needed from me, so I can be about my day fixing lunch, etc.

Hope this is somewhat helpful. I do think lapbooks every week would be hard for me. I tried to vary our schedule this year with lapbooks for some weeks and notebooking pages for other. I think it will work very well for us. I hope! :D

[ami*]

Paige,

I love your dds scrapbook! :thumb:

[Prov31Sandra]

Paige, I love your scrapbooks idea, because then if they only have one or two things, it can be one page, instead of trying to fill in 4 or 5 pages of a lapbook.

But here's the thing...the FIAR manual, for instance, for Katy No Pocket, does not suggest making minit books, diagramming a kangaroo, coloring a kangaroo, writing anything at all...it's all discussion and/or making the apron or pocketbook...

So what happens to me is, that in order to add in minit books, coloring pages, coloring things, etc. I feel like it takes away from my discussion/enjoyment time.

If you add 15 minsx5 days per week, that's 2 hours per week. Which of course isn't a lot, but it depends on whether it's worth it to you and dc.

For me it would only be worth it once in a while, because they LOVE all of Jane Claire's suggestions and they HATE coloring coloring sheets, making minit books, etc.

However- I am going to keep the notebook and maybe make a scrapbook, that would have one page for each book kind of like paige did, but it would only have whatever happens with FIAR, not stuff I add in.

A happy medium!

[ami*]

So what happens to me is, that in order to add in minit books, coloring pages, coloring things, etc. I feel like it takes away from my discussion/enjoyment time.


I think this is key. Don't do anything that subtracts. :no:
Many people have successfully used FIAR without lapbooks! :yes:

I bet you will like one page scrapbooks better, and your students will still have way to review some of the things they did. :)

[Prov31Sandra]

last year I picked up these mini-scrapbooks at Target. They are beautiful little 8x8 scrapbooks that tie with a ribbon and have a little square window in the front.

I used one for my dd's lap/scrapbook for Mike Mulligan and it'll have several pages leftover.

I could just fill these up as they happen, for her, and notebook for my ds, we'll see what he would prefer.

:o)

But for now, the Character fold-over flap triangle thing is really going to look nice in our lapbooks for Mike Mulligan. I got them from HOMESCHOOL SHARE, this wonderful site!!

Wink.

Thanks again.

[Prov31Sandra]

nt

[Sheri]

I have to say that 3 years ago I couldn't lapbook/notebook a thing. It's only this last year that it started working for us (And I am sure that's largely due to the ages of my children).

Do what works best for you as a mom, a wife and a teacher. No where in there does it say you have to lapbook!

[Sheri]

Cute avatar by the way!

[Kathleen M. in NC]

But here's the thing...the FIAR manual, for instance, for Katy No Pocket, does not suggest making minit books, diagramming a kangaroo, coloring a kangaroo, writing anything at all...it's all discussion and/or making the apron or pocketbook...

So what happens to me is, that in order to add in minit books, coloring pages, coloring things, etc. I feel like it takes away from my discussion/enjoyment time.


This is only our second week with FIAR, but I have 2 highschoolers in addition to my little ones using FIAR. However, my little ones LOVE lapbooks. I don't really add much to what is suggested in FIAR to make the lapbooks.

From FIAR manual:
The art is usually something they draw/paint to put in the book. They give me a narration of the book that I type up to put in. My 2nd grader does copywork of a sentence or two from the book to add to the lapbook. I make word problems for the math to put in. The vocabulary words can be put in the lapbook. Since they are already talking about where the book happened, I print out a map to put in the lapbook. Sometimes the math or science is something that works as a chart or booklet.

Added:
I look for cute pictures related to the topics to add to the lapbook. If I run across coloring pages, I might add them, although my 5yo gets tired of coloring fast. While looking for pictures of Pekin ducks for Ping, I ran across a "Duckling Diary" that had lots of cute pictures and text about a pair of Pekin ducklings that somebody raised. My daughter fell in love with the pictures, so I printed that out for the lapbooks, too. For Lentil, I'm not really adding anything, but for Mike Mulligan I want to look for construction machine pictures.

If your children don't like having lapbooks and you don't enjoy making them, I wouldn't bother. However, my little ones LOVE lapbooks (especially my daughter), and it isn't really much trouble to put together the little tangible things they have made. (If yours do less drawing/dictating/writing, it might be more difficult for you. I would do the written work even without the lapbooks.)

[Paige P]

here's the thing...the FIAR manual, for instance, for Katy No Pocket, does not suggest making minit books, diagramming a kangaroo, coloring a kangaroo, writing anything at all...it's all discussion and/or making the apron or pocketbook...

So what happens to me is, that in order to add in minit books, coloring pages, coloring things, etc. I feel like it takes away from my discussion/enjoyment time.

You are absolutely right (especially with Before), and we do lots of discussion, but my girls love to color and do crafts and cut and paste, so it's a natural fit. There are some days that we only spend 20-30 minutes on FIAR, and then there are days that we spend an hour on it, but, to me, it's time well spent, and the girls LOVE it (and we do it when ds is napping)!!! I almost always hit Enchanted Learning and have them color maps and flags of the country we're studying. Sometimes if EL has something else we're learning about (like animals), I'll print off something about that, as well, usually because it has important points that helps me teach it :D

I have a feeling when we start back with FIAR next week, that I'll need more than 2 pages for all our *stuff,* and I'm thinking about just gluing or taping (heavy duty tape) in a sheet of construction paper or part of a file folder -- I'll figure it out. I know last year we practiced the art style often with FIAR or did some painting of scenes or practiced painting a snowy scene, etc., and I'd like to include that. Maybe I'll just glue that in as a "fold out" or something. I'll figure it out. No matter what, though, I want it to represent MY kids' work, not mine.

There's no *right* or *wrong* way to do all of this (hsing) .... the joy of it all is that you have to figure out what fits for YOUR family and your children and where you are in life right now. Like Sheri said, she just started notebooking with her children b/c they're at the ages where they can do it themselves now.

Just enjoy -- FIAR is truly a delight :thumb:

[Denise, Guam]

We just started last year when we went on to volume 4. It works better because they are now older and we also cover volume 4 titles over 2 weeks so it allows more time for it.

[denice]

We just do the standard notebook thing. Sometimes I find scrapbook stickers on sale that fit with our unit and the kids scrapbook a particular project or subject. Our notebooks are filled with things like the drawing water lines lesson from Ping, and painting blobs to show symmetry for Madeline...etc. just whatever we did for that book we put it in the notebook. Each child has a notebook for each year. They are their most prized possessions, as they grow older their notebooks become more sophisticated with illustrated copywork and pictures I take of projects and events,like when we all wore bathrobes and turned our ironing bord into a "low" oriental style table. You get the idea ,nothing formal just a record of our learning. we have 8 years worth of notebooks now and each year the kids start and end the school year by looking at them and reviewing their education.

[Prov31Sandra]

an occasional scrapbook.

[KimK]

We just started school this week, and i was undecided on if I was going to lapbook or notebook. My dc are 2 and 5 so i do most of the cutting, pasting, and everything that goes with it. Lapbooking brings out the control freak in me as well, but I thought I would try both this year and see how we do. My biggest problem was figuring out how everything would fit. I decided to look at the FIAR stuff and map out my lapbook before hand on a piece of paper folded shutter style. I also made a master lapbook with folds in it so i could see how big or small they would end up. I left myself some room for my ds (5) to help me paste things together and review at the same time. I can say it has taken up more time than I wanted it to.....I guess I will see if I keep up on it :unsure:

[Prov31Sandra]

who can write and design the entire thing from start to finish, really all they need are suggestions.

But with any 4-6 year old, we need to design, help layout, and spell everything, or write it ourselves.

They are very happy with their lap/scrapbooks we did this week, especially my dd. My ds really could care less and since he's older we spent more time on his, so that really clinched it for me! LOL!

I am amazed at the flexbility of this program, and the array of talents and interests of the moms and kids here though.

In fact, I've been spending time figuring out what to cut out and consolidate on our 3R's just so that we can have more time to enjoy FIAR.

Smile.

[Jennifer Unsell]

Hey, I put together some beautiful lapbook/scrapbooks with my kids this week, but it seems like it takes twice as long to do FIAR now, because of writing and documenting for the lapbook, (Not to mention I am a scrapbooker so I couldn't deal with a basic markered, glued thing...)

All that to say we will *not* be doing lapbooks/scrapbooks for every book. It's really nice but it sure did take extra time. I would say the time we spent on the lapbooks that we would not have spent with just FIAR activities is going to be about 3 hours this week.

That's a lot when every minute is crunched.

:oP

But they sure are looking nice so far.


I am right their with you. We have only done 2 in our 4 years of rowing so far. They are nice looking but sure are time consuming.