I wrote this for my lapbooking site, but decided to reprint it here also.  For more about lapbooks please see this post.

    This is my first year lapbooking with my little one and I am finding that it is much different than lapbooking with an older child.  Little One is 5 and he was a very young kindergartener, in fact he did not turn 5 until a week after school started in September.  Because of this, he just doesn’t have some of the skills needed for regular lapbooking but he still wants to be apart of it and I feel it is good to start them at it young.  With that in mind, I have had to do a lot of adapting from the “normal” style of lapbooking.  First, most of the folds are not real intricate.  Simple folds work a lot better when they are little.  Second, I have to plan on doing a lot of the work (cutting, folding and helping with the gluing), but this would be true with any project at this age and I don’t feel like it is a lot of work on me to do it.  Third, less is more at this age.  Trying to do a 30 booklet lapbook at this age would be really stressful and he would probably loose interest before the thing was completed. 

     Another thing that is different is when I do a lap book with my oldest, most of the booklets center around the exact subject at hand.  Example:  If he was doing a space lapbook, I would probably have him do a book on the planets, a book on the astronauts, maybe a book on the sun layers, a time line of space travel, a diagram of the International Space Station and well, you get the point.  Obviously a little guy of 5 couldn’t do a project of that magnitude.  With my little one I concentrate more on making sure he is covering skills he needs, instead of covering the topic, that way his lapbook becomes his daily work instead of being an additional unit covering a certain subject.  Example:  Using the same space scenario I would maybe add a P is for planet page to practice writing P’s, a mini book telling about the planets (one that already has it printed up that I can read to him), maybe a maze getting the rocket to the moon, maybe a math sheet that you have to add the planets or something, maybe a mini book about Neil Armstrong (like the other mini book), maybe a craft using shapes to make a rocket, maybe a Bible verse such as Genesis 1:1 and something to color with it, and a simple graph for him to ask if Pluto should be a planet.  This way, he would be covering skills he needs to learn anyways, but they just center around a central theme and he has a nice little display that he is proud of in the end.  I will have an example of a lapbook Little One and I did at the end of this post.  Unfortunately, I don’t have pictures of any others at this time. Hopefully soon. 

     Here is a list of places that I have found really helpful when getting materials for Little One’s lapbooks.

This place has a lot of cool stuff:

http://www.first-school.ws/INDEX.HTM

Lots of free printables:

http://www.childcareland.com/free.html

This place also has lots of printables of various types:

http://www.kinderprintables.com/dailyprintables.htm

This place has a variety of different age group activities:

http://printables.familyeducation.com/

Lots of different patterns here:

http://www.preschoolexpress.com/pattern_station.shtml

Lots of crafts, printable and mini books:

http://www.dltk-kids.com/

This place has a lot of activities including simple mazes and other various activities:

http://www.bry-backmanor.org/index.html

Lots of holiday printables:

http://holidays.kaboose.com/

Various printables, crafts and activities for all age groups:

http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/index.htm

Lot’s of nice printables on tons of subjects:

http://www.enchantedlearning.com

Another place that has tons of printables on different subjects:

http://www.abcteach.com

Lots of minibooks:

http://www.hubbardscupboard.org/printable_booklets.html

African Animals color and write pages

http://www.shirleys-preschool-activities.com/animals-alphabet-coloring.html

Shape books

http://www.teacherview.com/WritingCenter/shape_books/index.htm

More Shape books

http://www.eduplace.com/rdg/hme/k_5/shapebook/toc.html

Even more shape books

http://www.vickiblackwell.com/makingbooks/shapebook.htm

Write on shapes

http://www.storyit.com/shapes/writeons.htm

This site has lots of lapbook templates and lapbooks based on picture books:

http://www.homeschoolshare.com/lapbooking_resources.php

Some more nice printables, especially on life cycles:

http://www.kizclub.com/

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Posted by ClagettsFLStyle

When my girls were younger we did all kinds of lapbooks and shape book type things.

Some of the sites you have listed are STILL my favorites - especially Enchanted Learning. I joined as a member becaus I truly appreciate all that they make available.

Have fun with your school today!

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Posted by psalms16vs2

Wow, very impressive. You do so well with lapbooks. We are watching the space shuttle liftoff on tv, and I keep thinking it would be a good lapbook. But, as usually, I probably won't do one. We don't have and file folders here, it's too snowy to just run out for them, and by the time I would get them, the whole space shuttle thing would be done. I make up a lot of good excuses, don't I? ;)
You are doing great with LO. Its so good to see how much he's learning with it all.
JoAnn

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Posted by SupUrbanMom

Thanks for visiting me and letting me know about this article. I am going to bookmark it, as the tips and links you have will be really useful. A really helpful and thorough post- Nice Work!

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