Ethan's First Lapbook!

This year for History, we are doing something called lapbooking. (This wasn't in my original plan, but I really didn't care for the history book I bought for Ethan. So we're improvising!) Here's how it works - we read lots of books about our subject (in this case, the Pilgrims). Then we make "mini-books" detailing the highlights of what Ethan's learned. At this point, being in Kindergarten and all, I help him quite a bit. When we're done, we compile them all into the lapbook - a file folder that's been refolded. He's had a great time doing this, and he's retained a fair amount of information!

The cover represents why the Pilgrims came to America - it's a Bible with "Freedom to Worship" written inside it. I took a picture of the inside, but taking a picture of a piece of paper with penciled writing on it doesn't tend to work so well. :)



When you open the book up, there are our mini books! We have shaped books - the hat tells what the men's work was and the pumpkin tells what they ate. There's a pocket with a miniature Plymouth Rock in it with 1620 written on it, to commemorate the year the Pilgrims landed. There's a petal book with women's work listed on the petals, and a picture of the Mayflower with our summation of the Mayflower Compact. On the left is the Story of Squanto book, and a book that folds out telling what Squanto taught the Pilgrims in order to help them survive the second winter. There is also a map of the New England coast on the back, with Plymouth marked.

One of the neat things about a lapbook is that the student gets to show them off to the grown-ups in his life. And of course, everytime he does, he's actually reviewing all he's learned!