Thank you for being here this afternoon. Today we will be doing a lapbook you can use year after year as a keepsake. The subject is Christmas Family Traditions.
Before we start, I want to remind everyone that my web casts are every Tuesday at 3:30pm Central time. This week I had to postpone until today, but I do a web cast every Tuesday at 3:30pm. And also this webcast will be recorded and will then be available on
www.thehomeschoolchannel.tv and also on YouTube.
Let’s first go over how to put together a lapbook. Today our lapbook is going to be a simple one with no flaps. We will have about 9 components in this.
First you fold your lapbook. Open up the file folder and then fold each side into the middle. Now you have your lapbook. You have three areas to put your mini books on.
The front of your lapbook needs to have 4 things:
1) Title – Christmas traditions
2) Child’s name
3) Date – Christmas 2011
4) Decorated by your child
The mini books we will be doing today are: a pocket to put pictures in, a flap book for the traditions, a petal book for your Christmas tree traditions, a simple fold for your Christmas menu, a matchbook for your Christmas Eve traditions, a simple fold for your whose who list, a simple ford your recipes, an accordion fold for your special family traditions, and a simple fold for your church activities. You can include a pictures for any of these activities you would like to put into the picture pocket. Remember on each mini book you will want to put what information will be in it. So on the flap book you need to put that this is Traditions on the cover.
Let me show you what each of these mini books look like. The pocket looks like this before you cut it out. After you cut it out you fold the big piece down and then fold the flaps around it. Then you just glue the flaps down into the book. The flap book I made with four flaps and a cover. You cut it out and then cut each flap so that it will open. The front of the flaps will say, where will you go this Christmas season, when will you celebrate, how do you give out presents, and how do you do your stockings. The petal book is my favorite. This one has five petals and you would put your title on the inside which is “Christmas Tree” and then fold each petal in. The last petal you fold under the first one so it will stay closed. On the outside of each petal you will put what information is under the petal, so you will put where do you put your tree, when do you put your tree up, what do you put on top, what other decorations do you put on your tree, and when will you take your tree down.
The next mini book is the simple fold for your Christmas Eve traditions. On the front you will put the title and then when you open it up, you will put what you do as a family on Christmas Eve. Next is the Whose who list and you will use another simple fold, but we will be turning it up like this. For our Traditional recipes we will use another simple fold. You can put as many recipes as you want into your lapbook. Special Family Traditions are next and we will be using an accordion fold book. Every family has some things they do that are special, I wrote down a couple of ours. Every year since my oldest was about five, I have bought an ornament for each of my children and put them into their stocking. Each child has a theme for their ornaments; Jaime’s is trains or nutcrackers, Rebekah’s reindeer or carousel horses, and Abigail’s is teddy bears. Another of our traditions is going around town and looking at the Christmas lights. So whatever your family does that is special you will put into the accordion book. After you cut it out, you fold it just like we used to fold the fans. Then you glue the bottom fold into the book and then you can pull the accordion open to see all the traditions. The last mini book is another simple fold for Church Activities.
After you have printed out all your books and cut them out. You will need to work with your child to get all the information in each book. Also let your child decorate each book to make them colorful. After all the books are finished, you can then start putting them into the lapbook. Before you start gluing however, try placing the mini books in and rearranging them if you need to, to make sure they will all fit. I think this was one of our mistakes in the past. We would begin putting the mini books in as we finished them and then would always run out of room. So place them in first before you begin gluing.
And that’s your lapbook. Pretty simple! I think sometimes we make things too complicated when they really aren’t.
Here is the website to print the mini books:
This is a wonderful website. They have many different mini books with all kinds of shapes and sizes.
Are there any questions?
Susan says the stick glue doesn’t work for her. You can use Elmer’s glue, you will just need to make sure your child doesn’t use too much.
Watersprite says how about using rubber glue? Is that the one that uses the brush? If it is I think that would work well.
Paul says they you a pen from 3M.
Double sided tape works well also, but it is a little more expensive. I don’t like using staples though.
Paul says that next week on Wednesday, Dec. 28th at 3:30pm central, he will be doing a webcast about what will be going on in 2012 on The Homeschool Channel. I’ll try and get my list to you, Paul, so you can use it during your webcast.
Thank you for being here today and I’ll see you next week.
TSH Homeschool 