Have you heard of lap books? They are very popular, interactive learning tools, especially among the homeschooling community. A lap book is basically a folded posterboard or file folder on which is depicted information about any topic from any subject. If you Google 'lap book,' you will find examples from history, science, biography, language - the possibilities are endless. Lap books are great because they are open-ended by design and there are no right or wrong ways to construct them. They can be tailored to your child's interests and developmental level. And because of their interactive, hands-on nature, lap books are great ways to feature the lives of our ancestors, which is what I did in this activity.
As mentioned above, you can use posterboard, but I simply used two plain file folders to make our lap book. I glued the two file folders together so that I had a folder that opened from both the right and the left. Then I covered the sides with some cardstock to give the book a little more color, because kids love color. Of course, you can always just buy colored file folders, too, but those cost a little bit more.
On the cover of the lap book, I simply put a photo of the ancestor we were profiling, his name, and the years of his birth and death. On the next page, after you lift the cover, I made a list of people showing HOW this man fits into the child's genealogy. I think this is a really important visual feature, especially for ancestors who lived so far removed from your child's time. This man is my kids' 4th great-grandfather, which in and of itself is hard to comprehend, but if I trace him back starting with their dad, grandpa and great-grandma (all of whom they know personally), then it doesn't seem as abstract.
As mentioned above, you can use posterboard, but I simply used two plain file folders to make our lap book. I glued the two file folders together so that I had a folder that opened from both the right and the left. Then I covered the sides with some cardstock to give the book a little more color, because kids love color. Of course, you can always just buy colored file folders, too, but those cost a little bit more.
On the cover of the lap book, I simply put a photo of the ancestor we were profiling, his name, and the years of his birth and death. On the next page, after you lift the cover, I made a list of people showing HOW this man fits into the child's genealogy. I think this is a really important visual feature, especially for ancestors who lived so far removed from your child's time. This man is my kids' 4th great-grandfather, which in and of itself is hard to comprehend, but if I trace him back starting with their dad, grandpa and great-grandma (all of whom they know personally), then it doesn't seem as abstract.
Cover Page
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Inside Cover - Genealogy
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Next, as you open up the genealogy page, you have the complete tri-fold spread to look at. At this point, you can really let your imagination tell you what you would like to include. Also, remember to try to keep the information you list at an appropriate level for your learner. My daughter is in the very early stages of learning to read, so I didn't want to overwhelm the lap book with too many words. Had I been making the book just for my 8 year old son, I would have included a small biography of this man found in one of the local history books and maybe even some more primary sources like a land deed or his county death record. (Click on image below for larger view.)
Full Spread of Inside of Lap Book
On the left hand side, I've focused on where this man came from, in the middle I show a few facts about his life in America, and then on the right, I've listed his wives names and his date of death. Again, this is a pretty simple summary of this ancestor's life, but it's very visual in nature and not overwhelming when I sit down and talk about it with my 5 year old. We plan on making more of these for other ancestors in our tree! Happy Lap-Booking!
©2016 Emily Kowalski Schroeder
©2016 Emily Kowalski Schroeder
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