Expand the Learning with Tapestry of Grace Lapbooks

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Add lapbooks to your Tapestry of Grace year plan to expand the learning!

Tapestry of Grace sponsored this post and gave me the year 1 lapbook for free. In the interest of disclosure, I purchased all 4-year plans of Tapestry of Grace, and I’m in my 6th year of using Tapestry of Grace to teach my own children history. All opinions are my own honest opinions. For more information please read my disclosure policy.

Reading great books with our grammar stage kids is wonderful, but I’ve always felt there should be more. Perhaps a bit of narration, discussion of vocabulary, or a coloring page. Activities that expand on the reading and help retention.

But it’s hard coming up with ideas of our own. This is why I adore expanding the learning with Tapestry of Grace’s lapbooks!

Creating the Lapbook

If you’re wondering what a lapbook is, a lapbook is a book that opens up to display the mini-books and flaps the child has created. While you can make your own, usually you print out sheets to cut, fold, and fill out before gluing or fastening the flap to the book.

Tapestry of Grace‘s lapbooks include easy hands-on activities to expand on your history readings. Kids cut, color, write, and glue. By the time they’re finished, their retention is much better.

In fact, you’ll want to be prepared to chat about the activity for the next several days! My own kids love telling me all about what they learned this past week.

As I prefer the digital download of the lapbook, I begin by printing up the sheets we need. Each week of Tapestry of Grace has its own activities so you’re not trying to cram an entire quarter’s learning into one afternoon!

And no, you don’t need to guess. Tapestry of Grace has provided a sheet that lets you know what activity to do when. This helps tremendously when I’m filing my pages for the year. I can print out the lapbook sheets and drop them in my weekly files.

When we first switched to Tapestry of Grace, my 4th child was in upper grammar. Each week on Friday we would sit down and fill out the lapbook together. We’d chat about what he learned. Then he’d color, write, and paste. It was a beautiful finish to his weekly studies.

I thought I’d do that with my younger children, but it’s not working out. At K and 1st grade, they need the immediate reinforcement of their studies.

The system is simple. We sit down together, I read from our text, and the children listen and color on regular paper.

Then I pull out the lapbook sheets. First, we cut it out by cutting on the solid lines.

Once it’s cut out, I guide my child through the folding.

And the coloring begins!

Since my youngest children are in kindergarten and 1st grade, I don’t require much writing. Sometimes my 1st-grade daughter is willing to write sentences. Other times, like now, she’s content with drawing a picture about what she learned.

You can see Noah’s granddaughter looking out the window. Apparently, she’s very bored and tired of playing board games.

Now the flap is finished! The outside is colored and a picture is drawn on the inside.

As a result, my daughter will be able to open the flap to review and remember what she learned about Noah’s Ark.

Now it’s time to glue the flap to the lapbook!

We’re not very good at following the instructions for exactly where to place the various flaps. Instead, they tend to be glued where my kids want them.

Tapestry of Grace Lapbooks Expand the Learning

Dialectic and rhetoric kids using Tapestry of Grace have wonderful discussions planned. We sit down and discuss what’s happening and how this affects them. Then we discuss the ramifications of current events including why it’s important today.

Grammar stage kids aren’t ready for discussions. They’re absorbing information like sponges. They need hands-on activities to fully grasp a concept.

I don’t know about you, but heading out to a football field to measure off the size of Noah’s Ark sounds fun… and time-consuming.

On a weekly basis, I want something easy to expand the learning with something that doesn’t require a huge investment of time and energy. Something which gives the kids a portfolio to admire and show off.

And that’s just what lapbooks do. They give me a hands-on activity to reinforce and expand on what the kids studied. They’re easy to complete. And the kids love cutting, coloring, and pasting.

And lapbooks impress the grandparents!

Check out Tapestry of Grace today!