Our Lapbooking Journey

We started making lapbooks in October 2008. It was just a fun way for my 4yo to document his learning of special subject matters. I like it that it can be treated as a special project on its own that we work together for. At the end of the process, there is a book that we can add to our home library.

The first lapbook - Triple Decker Bus was entirely a product of his own effort. It was my idea to make a lapbook on that subject matter, but the only other credit I could take was putting the pages together. He drew and wrote everything in the book. 

Even before he completed his first lapbook, I had the idea for his  second book - A Book About The World. That stemmed out of his interest on geography, flags and maps and curiosity about the countries in the world. 

The subsequent lapbooks on Goodnight Moon, Blueberries for Sal and How to make an apple pie and see the world were done based on themes found in these titles. My 2yo was also involved in most part of our lapbooking journey and it is amazing to me to witness the tremendous amount that he has picked up from the experience. 

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A handful of readers of this blog have suggested to me ever since we began lapbooking that I consider starting a home-based lapbooking class. After some thoughts, I am planning to start a pilot class on this soon. Read more if you are keen. 

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These supportive readers recognise the time and effort required for a parent to prepare the homeschooling materials for each theme, not to mention the discipline and patience required to coach their kids through every activitiy. 

As I am a firm believer of the importance of trans-disciplinary learning, all my homeschooling themes and lapbooking process include Language Arts, Math, Science, Geography or History, Arts and Crafts, Chinese activities and more. There is also a strong focus on activities that encourage inquisitiveness and independent exploration.

It is true that I do put in countless hours every week planning the curriculum, researching and preparing for the resources for each theme. While there are materials that we can find on the Internet, I have not found a single site that I can count on to meet my focus on delivering a trans-disciplinary learning experience. 

Like I mentioned earlier, the lapbooks are just the end product. The true benefits of this lapbooking journey is the learning experiences that the kids had during the process of lapbooking.

How we deliver the content and how engaging our approach is to our young ones is key to ensuring that they learn whatever we set out to teach. 

From our experience so far, both my 4.5yo and 2yo (who will be 2.5yo in a week) have benefitted significantly from our learning journey as evident from my earlier posts.

Edited to add on 2nd April: All classes are full.