Blueberries for Sal Lapbook

We have finally finished our very first lapbook! It is on Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey. I loved making it, and I think the kids enjoyed it, too. There were so many resources online for this particular book. Although there are many commercial resources available, I chose to make up my own lapbook. I borrowed a few ideas from what is available online and came up with a few ideas of my own. Here is what we did.

My children each made a lapbook whith similar work in them. Both children wrote the letter “B” and drew pictures of “B” words and both made blue collages. They both have photos of the different kinds of bears and a bear’s den, and they both have books about our blueberry picking trip as well as a book on the life cycle of a blueberry bush. However, I modified the work for their different levels in order to meet my individual children’s needs. My older child located Maine on a map, but my younger child did not. They both made a counting book, but my older child’s book went up to 10 while my younger child’s book went up to 4. My older child dictated the text for the Full or Empty book, but my younger child just has a flap for full and a flap for empty.

Here are a few of the lessons that I learned along the way.

1. Read the text to the children a lot, and get the book on cd if at all possible. I found that my children made more interesting comments, asked better questions, and made fantastic connections to our work after reading the book many times. We listened to it in the car for days as we ran errands and visited people. A recorded version takes the pressure off of you to reread all of the time.
2. Consider the learning levels of your individual children, and modify the work if that seems most appropriate for your children.
3. Prepare the mini books ahead of time. The kids simply are not going to wait for you to construct something last minute – unless your children are more patient than mine are.
4. Think about where the mini books will be placed inside of the lapbook. You’ll want all of the work to fit into the book perfectly.
5. Be willing to toss out work that did not come out as planned. Some things are just not worthy of keeping whether your planning was the culprit or the kids just were not ready for that type of work. Don’t beat yourself up about it; just toss it.
6. Be ready to change gears. Sometimes things don’t go as planned, but something on the fly works out better. Follow your instincts and try something unplanned that works better.
7. Remember to let the kids review their own work. You are making the lapbook so your child will be able to look back and reflect on all of the learning s/he did. Keep the book in an accessible place.
8. Have fun making the book! This is the most important piece. Any of the work you do with the children will result in learning, so just let go and have a great time with the kids!

I hope that this serves as an inspiration for you to try out a lapbook or two.

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