Since we started lapbooking in 2008, I have made over 120 titles of literature-based lapbooks. Majority of these were for the different age groups of toddlers and preschoolers I taught in my Bright Minds Lapbooking classes.
My boys learnt primarily from my lapbooking activities throughout their preschool and kindergarten days, up till they were in Primary One. Not assessment books or tuition classes.
Varied Lapbooking Approaches
There are many ways to approach lapbooking. You may create a lapbook of your child's favourite topic or theme, e.g. elephants, or a topic that you like to teach, e.g. a country or the four seasons. And just proceed to gather content and printables from free resources, teach your child to complete them and glue these pages into a lapbook.
However, these are NOT my lapbooking style.
My Lapbooking Style
I have three key beliefs when it comes to nurturing young minds.
1. Raise them in a language-rich environment. This influences the way I read, interact and discuss with my kids and students.
2. Young children do not interpret their world in categories such as English, Math and Science. They learn best when information, issues, problems and content presented to them are trans-disciplinary. To learn what trans-disciplinary means as a teaching approach and the benefits, read this.
3. Curiosity is the single most important trait to nurture and develop. In fact, research has consistently shown that curiosity is as important as intelligence in determining success. Teach the skill, and the child will learn all kinds of content easily.
Hence, my lapbooking style is very different.
If a child is fascinated with advanced themes and capable of asking questions that reflect deeper understanding of the topics, I give her the opportunity to lead the discussions and be the role model to others.
If a child has the passion to draw, I present her with scenarios where she can express through drawings to solve a problem, lead her peers and sharpen her presentation skills.
WHY my lapbooking style WORKS
Even within every quiet, shy, unmotivated or frustrated child, there is one quality that is universal:
Once we are able to identify their sensitive periods of learning, with an effective method of coaching and a systematic way of guiding the child to overcome his current weaknesses and challenging him to aim and achieve more to further develop his strengths, we will increase his motivation.
As long as we remain steadfast in coaching them towards excellence, we will fuel a lifelong love for learning in every child.
How we deliver the content and how engaging our coaching approach is to our young ones is KEY to ensuring that they learn whatever we set out to teach.
One of the most popular lapbooks documented on this blog must be 'How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World', simply because I shared a lot of details of the lapbooking activities in a three-part blog posts.
Part 1: An introduction of the lapbook and the first 12 activities
Part 2: More details on the next 10 activities
Part 3: A photo post.
Do check out From Tiny Acorns to register for classes and workshops.
Be sure to follow our Facebook page for coaching tips, research, videos and ideas that I only share with our Facebook followers. We will announce a surprise for our Facebook followers when we have reached a milestone!
My boys learnt primarily from my lapbooking activities throughout their preschool and kindergarten days, up till they were in Primary One. Not assessment books or tuition classes.
Varied Lapbooking Approaches
There are many ways to approach lapbooking. You may create a lapbook of your child's favourite topic or theme, e.g. elephants, or a topic that you like to teach, e.g. a country or the four seasons. And just proceed to gather content and printables from free resources, teach your child to complete them and glue these pages into a lapbook.
However, these are NOT my lapbooking style.
My Lapbooking Style
I have three key beliefs when it comes to nurturing young minds.
1. Raise them in a language-rich environment. This influences the way I read, interact and discuss with my kids and students.
2. Young children do not interpret their world in categories such as English, Math and Science. They learn best when information, issues, problems and content presented to them are trans-disciplinary. To learn what trans-disciplinary means as a teaching approach and the benefits, read this.
3. Curiosity is the single most important trait to nurture and develop. In fact, research has consistently shown that curiosity is as important as intelligence in determining success. Teach the skill, and the child will learn all kinds of content easily.
Hence, my lapbooking style is very different.
- I begin with a quality literature, which can be a well-written picture book or storybook.
- A big part of the lapbooking activities are specially designed as scenarios, issues and problems to be discussed and solved.
- The focus is on fostering a culture of inquisitiveness and independent exploration. Teach students how to ask questions and how to think, so they learn to ask questions and reflect, instead of giving answers to questions asked.
- All activities are abilities-based. I adapt lapbooking activities to challenge every child's abilities. At any one time in class, there could be several variations of the same activity, tailored to suit the competence of each child.
If a child is fascinated with advanced themes and capable of asking questions that reflect deeper understanding of the topics, I give her the opportunity to lead the discussions and be the role model to others.
If a child has the passion to draw, I present her with scenarios where she can express through drawings to solve a problem, lead her peers and sharpen her presentation skills.
WHY my lapbooking style WORKS
Even within every quiet, shy, unmotivated or frustrated child, there is one quality that is universal:
Every child craves to be excellent. Every child wants to achieve.
Once we are able to identify their sensitive periods of learning, with an effective method of coaching and a systematic way of guiding the child to overcome his current weaknesses and challenging him to aim and achieve more to further develop his strengths, we will increase his motivation.
As long as we remain steadfast in coaching them towards excellence, we will fuel a lifelong love for learning in every child.
How we deliver the content and how engaging our coaching approach is to our young ones is KEY to ensuring that they learn whatever we set out to teach.
One of the most popular lapbooks documented on this blog must be 'How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World', simply because I shared a lot of details of the lapbooking activities in a three-part blog posts.
Part 1: An introduction of the lapbook and the first 12 activities
Part 2: More details on the next 10 activities
Part 3: A photo post.
Do check out From Tiny Acorns to register for classes and workshops.
Be sure to follow our Facebook page for coaching tips, research, videos and ideas that I only share with our Facebook followers. We will announce a surprise for our Facebook followers when we have reached a milestone!
2 comments:
Hi, I have been reading silently for a few years now since my first child was 4 when
I was living overseas. By time we returned, I realized we missed your classes. Very happy to see you resuming now. Just one question - what about children who could not read yet or not talking much yet? Will they benefit as much? thanks in advance.
Hi Su Ling, thanks for your support. Toddlers who are still learning to speak can still benefit much from our parent-accompanied classes. Our lapbooking activities are specially designed to cater to the needs of this age group, to help extend their concentration span, strengthen their listening and fine motor skills. Even when toddlers are not expressing with speech readily yet, they are capable of learning a lot more through carefully designed activities that heighten their awareness, boost their vocabulary and sharpen their listening skills. Through this exposure, their speech development will also be vastly enhanced, and in the process speeds up their learn-to-read journey.
In all parent-accompanied classes, I will also be working one-to-one with each parent/child at different time of the lessons and sharing quick-and-effective coaching tips with parents that they can use to reinforce learning at home. Over the years, we have received many testimonials from parents and students. Here is a selection: http://from-tiny-acorns.blogspot.sg/2013/10/testimonials.html
Post a Comment