Our Island Story Lapbook -part 1

     Seeing how well Anna retained the information she learned while working on a lapbook, I decided to start integrating them into more subjects.  Our core book for history is Our Island Story, and although I loved reading about ancient England and the Dark Ages last year, Anna was just not that into it.  I blamed it on the fact that our addition of the book has no pictures, and since what we were reading was all new to Anna, it didn't make much sense.  Reading about Julius Caesar conquering England with a fleet of galley ships is really interesting, unless you don't know anything about Julius Caesar, or Rome, and have no idea what a galley is.  Then it's a rather pointless story.  I tried to get pictures off the internet, but it just wasn't enough.  That is where lapbooks come in.  A lapbook can provide pictures, which she desperately needs to visualize the story, a reason to study the characters more in depth, and the opportunity to give simple written narrations. What I came up with isn't exactly a lapbook, since it goes in a three ring binder, but it is essentially the same thing.  I intend to one day post all my resources online so that others can take advantage of it, but for now, I thought I would show it as we go along.  This is the first page, with info on the first two Williams.

       So, has working on a lapbook for history helped?  I would say immensely.  Her narrations have gotten so much better, and she seems to really be forming a relationship with the people that we are reading about. She listens more attentively so that she will have stuff to write about. Most of all, she loves history now, where as before she didn't.