History is one of our favorite subjects to study together.  One of the reasons for this is because the personalities that pop up in the pages of our history books are so darn fascinating.  People are curious creations, which makes the study of them an engaging pastime.

While we study history chronologically, I am a great advocate of the biography, and I try to include many great ones as readers for the kids.  By studying a significant person of a particular time period, I think the child learns a lot about history in general.

Earlier this year, when we were studying early American history, Harrison read several biographies about Benjamin Franklin, as well as several short stories and little vignettes from other history books.  By studying such a large personality of that day, I felt my son had a better understanding of the making of our nation…better than if we had stuck solely to our history reader that just had a mere one chapter dedicated to the life of  Franklin.

Then, as your children read these biographies, it is a good idea to collect the information they’ve gleaned.  Sure, you could just have them write a book report, but we, more and more often, are doing our reports via lapbooks.

To make a lapbook, you simply refold a file folder, and then have your child fill it with little learning activities that you make for them or print from on-line or workbooks.

Lapbooks are especially good if you have a reluctant writer on your hands.  They are still getting good practice at gathering, collecting and reporting on information they have learned….just in smaller, more manageable chunks.

Lapbooks are good to use for subjects in which you don’t give tests.  For us, that happens to be history and science for the most part. In addition to biographies,  they make for good culminating activities for large units like the Civil War or the Industrial Revolution. 

You can find a healthy amount of printable activities that can be adapted for lapbooking by simply googling the subject that you are studying.  I’ve found that the site www.homeschoolshare.com has many lapbook activities, already grouped together by subject, that you can print for free.  Most of our Benjamin Franklin activities came from this site.

In my opinion, the best grades to use lapbooks is somewhere between about 3rd and 8th grades.  You can use them for younger kids, but you will end up doing a lot more of the work with them.  As Bonny Annie gets older (she’ll start high school this coming school year!), I am finding it hard to find lapbook materials that are challenging enough for her.

I think you’ll find that after reading several biographies and completing a lapbook on an interesting person, your child will be able to impress innocent bystanders with their amazing knowledge…or they should at the very least be able to answer some Jeopardy questions correctly.

Related links:

A treasure trove of information on lapbooking

Hands of a Child…a site where you can purchase downloadable lapbook templates by subject

A list of biographies and printables for kids

My secret is out:  I can’t spell Pocahontas.  I have to look at it every single time.  It’s ridiculous.  And time-consuming.

For history this year, we’ve started a two-year journey on American history.  So the past several weeks have been filled with stories of Native Americans, conquistadors, and Christopher Columbus.  Harrison was assigned to read the Clyde Robert Bulla book, Pocahontas and the Strangers.  I think it would have taken me about six years to write a book about that chick because I would have had to look up her name 649 times.  It may take me two hours just to get through this blog post unless I just continue to call her things like chick or girly or young Indian woman….all of which I know how to spell.

Anyhoo, for the kids’ literature selections this year, I am having them complete some sort of project for each book they read, and for this one I found a whole mess of lapbook activities (link shared below), so he’s been gradually putting one together.  We learned a lot….even things that weren’t included in the book.  Except for how to spell her name.  I will never get that one down.

Dirty Harry decorated the cover with a coloring page depiction of the girl in which we were studying and the correct spelling of her name, executed quite colorfully on the border.  Did you know that Little P was not actually the buxom, leggy creature of Disney’s imagination?  And did you know that there was actually no romance between herself and John Smith?  And did you know that she didn’t actually have conversations with a talking tree? 

On the inside left flap we attached two mini books.  One covered medicine men in general and their functions in Native American tribes.  The other focused on how our heroine and her tribe helped Jamestown.

Above shows a pocket where he included character cards.  On the back of the index card, Harrison wrote some facts about each person.  For example, on our girl’scard, he explains how she eventually goes to England and commits all kinds of fashion faux pas, and how they change her name to Rebecca because they don’t know how to spell that other name either.

The above tri-fold booklet nearly caused a breakdown one afternoon because Harrison thought it was too detailed to color.  He was relieved though that he could answer the questions about her wedding in just a few words.

We included another little mini book on how she saved John Smith’s life.  Now there’s someone with a nice, sensible, easy-to-spell name!

Then at the bottom, we placed two matchbook style books on her childhood and the roles of Native American women in general.

On the side flap, we attached the story of our Indian maiden’s kidnapping.  At least Dirty Harry got the spelling right.

On the back, we have a map showing home girl’s travels to England and a chart where Harrison compared his religious beliefs to those of Native Americans.  Did you know that P-Dawg (I watch waaaaay too much American Idol.) eventually became a Christian?

All in all, it was a fun and informative project!  And here is a link to most of the resources that we used to complete the book:  http://www.homeschoolshare.com/pocahontas.php  The activities were actually based on the d’Aulaire book about you-know-who, but we were able to adapt the ones we wanted to use very easily.