Announcing THE FLIP~FLAP FILES

Do you love lapbooks? If you home educate chances are you know what I'm talking about. I first came across them a few years ago on one of the American homeschool blogs. I immediately loved the idea of them and my children were 2 and 6 when we made our very first ones. Over the years, we have made them to compliment our book studies, our projects and have even made some that have become precious records of our family.

What are lapbooks, I hear you ask? They are a delightfully simple, yet clever way to present and preserve your child's work. You take a cardboard folder, make lots of little booklets, put the two together and hey presto! You have a beautiful display of your child's work. Of course, there is a little more to it :) Each little booklet, or minibook,  has to be filled in by your child. This can be done in different ways, by drawing, writing or collage to name but a few. Each minibook breaks a topic down into neatly divided, manageable chunks. Reluctant writers can write a word or a sentence, while older children can write short paragraphs in their minibooks. Parents can act as scribes or pictures and diagrams can provide the answers. All in all, you get a beautiful keepsake of each stage of your child's development.

I don't know about your children, but my little boy has always loved books that have pockets in them, and flip-ups to lift and investigate. All those intricate '-ology' books have pride of place on his bookshelf. That's how I knew that lapbooks were the way to go with him. What better way for him to learn than for him to be able to make his own book of flips and flaps to hold his activities and provide him with his own hand-made reference books? We have a large selection of years of work which he still loves to get out and show anyone who will take the time to look. He is so very proud of his lapbooks and each time he does this, he is revisiting the projects and  that learning goes a little deeper into his brain :)

And so The Flip~Flap Files have been born from the my son's love of  his own learning journey.
All the printables you need to make the lapbook are in there. You buy the folders and glue, add an envelope or too, get out the stapler and away you go. Of course, paper-based activities are not enough to keep children enthralled and eager to learn, so you will also find instructions for your child to make his own Humpty Dumpty toy, a hands-on science experiment, cooking ideas, games suggestions and the sheet music for your own music and movement session.

 There will be more to come in this range of products. Nursery rhymes are so familiar to children and such an important part of any culture that they make fine building blocks for early learning adventures.