It all actually started the day I attended Despina Karamitsou’s presentation about lapbooks, in one of the Tesol Macedonia-Thrace- Northern Greece conventions!( http://prezi.com/e_9ywrnysmzl/lapbooks-and-dioramas/ )
Despina, (https://www.facebook.com/despina.karamitsou.1?fref=ts ) is an exceptional colleague who teaches in greek state primary schools, doing amazing things with her students!
Her presentation , was really inspirational ! We had the chance to talk about her work in class in detail, some time later and she insisted that I should try lapbooks with my students, too ! To be honest with you, I had been as busy as a bee during the last school year, therefore, I came up with the idea of using lapbooks with my afternoon classes only ( fewer students, project work and games, no fixed curriculum) .
It was actually almost the end of the school year, and that particular group of students, coming from the twin school next to mine, were not my class students ! They had not participated in any kind of project work with their english teacher before, they were not in the same level in english, their average english language level was pre-elementary, although they were 5th graders , they were reluctant to do any real class work at first and they all came from different social backgrouds being immigrants’ children from 3 different countries in the Balcans! Phew..!
Well, ignoring all the above , I decided to give it a try, considering working on that project with such a diverse group of students, quite challenging!
Some basic info now, for all of you who might never heard of lapbooking before:
The term “Lap Book” was first coined by Tammy Duby, a homeschool mother and writer from Virginia, USA. She named it that because the whole project could fit into a “book” that fits in the child’s lap.
A lapbook is an inexpensive portfolio
or collection of mini-books, flaps, and folded display material,
that provides interactive space
for drawings, stories,
graphs, graphics, timelines, diagrams,
and written work,
from any topic, unit study, book you choose,
gathered, glued, and creatively displayed
in a coloured standard sized cardboard folder,
often folded in a “shutter-fold” (though our family doesn’t),
that fits in your lap. <Johanna Whittaker (c) 2008>
Each lapbook is an original creation, will be different according to topic and creator, and will be a treasure for years to come. There is no right or wrong way to lapbook.
Lapbooking is a great vehicle to teach CONTENT and PROCESS.
The CONTENT comes from topics that interest the students [delight-driven] – this brings about more internal-based motivation and therefore greater learning from and ownership of the work.
The PROCESS is what will help the children through life – research, planning, creativity, presentation, evaluation .
Useful Equipment Supplies before you start :
* Card folders – buff or coloured, gloss or not, pastel or bold
– best the larger legal size A4 or taller.
– Extension pages for lapbooks – card, could use wallpaper.
* Good (construction, printer) paper – to make folds with, to write and print on. Card stock.
* Adhesives – (invisible) sticky tape (Scotch, Sellotape), double-sided sticky tape, good quality dry glue stick.
* Variety of pens and pencils, colour or watercolour pencils, felts for borders or outlines, clear ruler.
* Cutters – scissors, paper/print cutter
* Topic-related (source) materials, brochures, handouts, postcards, pictures or graphics – info from internet or from library books. Using own photos.
Realia – anything from the real world that can be added in like a shell, sand, handmade paper made by child, model of the real thing.
* Useful extras – stencils, sticky velcro (for holding books and the folders themselves shut or making re-usable games, 3in1 psc (printer, scanner, copier), time and patience
When I started out lapbooking, I (as teacher ) spent
a whole day online ,checking out websites with pictures showing folds, mini-books and lapbooks. I had a pile of square and A4 scrap paper plus scissors beside me at the computer. I did prototypes of more than ten mini-books, flapbooks etc,then spend some time on another day FOLDING with my students showing them how and discussing possible uses for the different folds and minibooks.
The very next step was, to choose the topic for our first lapbook.Time was short, therefore, I thought it would be a good idea for students to write about something familiar and motivating: themselves!
That was when our first lapbook got a name: ” All about me”!
To read the steps I took , you can have a look at the following post
http://www.ehow.com/how_8247239_make-lapbook-elementary-kids.html
That was my first experience with a “lap book”. The result was very cute and many teachers and parents alike had only great things to say. I did experience problems with it , though…
My major obstacle was the fact that, I didn’t teach the same group of students each week! It was the same class but different students attended each week, due to school bureaucratic policy reasons, I can’t explain here! Secondly, I had the chance to see that class only once a week!
What is more, this mixed ability class ,was definitely another problem for me: I practically had to help each student individually !
On the other hand, one of the things I really like about lapbooks, is that I can keep work-time down to short sessions.Each teaching afternoon session lasted only 35 minutes but, it was enough to finish with at least one part of our lapbook!
An extra benefit of this method is that the children love to show off their work. My students, were proud of what they had done and would frequently review the books (which helped them remember the information) – and ‘narrated’ what they had done to members of their family.
At the end of the school year, I handed the finished lapbooks to my students to take home! I am sure , they will be a treasure for years to come and will remind them of our English afternoon class!
Useful tips
Before you start, you will especially need to raid the websites and get a look at examples. Check out http://www.google.com and look in IMAGES for something like lapbook OR lapbooks OR lapbooking. Right click OPEN in new tab/window for pictures you want to see bigger. Also click on the flickr badge on sidebar.Or have a look at Pinterest .
The best advice I can give you for lapbooking is “Just Do It”!
No one will be grading you.
Get out your supplies, put on your thinking caps and have fun!
You will be amazed what you and your students can come up with together.
Proud lapbook owners!
This first lapbook , was later followed by more ones of the same topic…here are some photos of them!
Happy students working creatively!
ELT inspired 