Four Violet Reviews: A Journey Through Learning Lapbooks ~ REVIEW

I love fast, simple, informative and fun projects for our homeschool. I find that completing lapbooks really does fit the bill most of the time. And recently we have had the pleasure of using An Overview of the 20th Century from A Journey Through Learning Lapbooks. It's geared for kiddos in grades 2-7 and is totally a stand alone product. Just grab some folders, glue, scissors, glue, coloring supplies and a few other extras like decorative tape like we used, fasteners, a stapler...really anything you want to jazz up your creation.

Once we downloaded the file on our computer we just printed out the whole thing, just 72 pages. The last 10 pages are filled with extras to do along with resources. We did not do the Report pages for the different Wars yet, but once we finish the last few events we will be going back for a review and complete them. Also, I will introduce him to the world of book reports this year and plan to use the resources provided here to get his feet wet with some Biography choices from some people he found interesting in the 20th century. I will say he questioned why Einstein or Mileva wasn't mentioned. So, I may have him include his favorite 2 Scientists too. :) I loved the title page and the table of contents page. We decided against the file folders, Kaden likes putting the pieces in notebooks usually. But, this time he wanted to use construction paper and make it into a keepsake book.... works for me. He told me that one day he will read it with his kids. :)

I decided to use this towards the end of our summer and start of our new school year. This worked out perfect because each topic covered is pretty short and doable when your trying to get back on track. From the get go Kaden was thrilled with many of the topics covered, he was familiar with almost all of them. Everything from the Roaring Twenties, the major Wars from the 20th century, First Man on the Moon to the Y2K Scare. The directions are so simple for completing these books I dare say I was almost able to let Kaden work totally independently. Those that know him would totally know how huge this is. He still needs help with cutting and folding, but for the most part I let him just go with it and he felt like a STAR! Basically, we went though the list, read, cut out the pieces and did whatever activity was required and then glued it onto our pages. The activities ranged from fill in the blanks, short answers, map work to word searches. It was also nice to have link options right there on the paper we were cutting to get more info about the topic.

So, what did we think? This has been our favorite lapbooking experience so far. Mainly because it wasn't confusing, just straight forward instructions with simple folds and activities that were fun. This would be extremely perfect for any child with special needs. Kaden usually backs off and just does what I tell him to help with. This was all him, I just helped with some of the cutting when he became too frustrated. This would be perfect to introduce your kiddo to the 20th century, like an overview and then go in depth where they are the most interested. This also would be perfect for the summer or holiday time when time is limited. I look forward to finishing this lapbook and looking at the many other options they have. :)