Lapbook of Henry II

Here is a page from this year's scrapbook we're making to go along with our study of Our Island Story up until the end of the Tudors. (In previous years, we tried to do the whole book in one year, but felt we missed out on so much fantastic stuff, we slowed our progress this year).

Scrapbook Page on Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine

There are four items that make up the double-page spread, though true to form, Phoenix has added some cartoons and labels that weren't exactly in the plan for everyone.

The items are:

• Map of Europe showing the Angevin empire under Henry II's control and how he had more of France than did the King of France at the time. The link is here: http://tinyurl.com/ceufo39

• A cross-shaped book which, above, is labeled "Turmoil". Inside are some quick facts about Henry II.

With the cross-shaped flaps open, the topics
are Henry's castle-building, the "acquisition" of Ireland,
and his burial in France.

• A booklet of the story of Thomas Becket.

An Accordion-Fold Book of Thomas Becket's Life and Death

• A layered book about Eleanor of Aquitaine.

A 7-layer Booklet
(Sorry it's sideways!)

With some of the flaps open:
Eleanor's vital statistics, and (overleaf)
her two kingly husbands.

As usual, the session was mixed, the girls taking to the activity like ducks to water.  Cutting, pasting, fashioning, some even writing the labels rather than cutting the pre-typed ones.

Some people criticise lapbooks as busy work -
but in order to fashion the items correctly,
the student needs to pay attention to the
information and process what it's about.

The boys, on the other hand, either needed help with the cutting (otherwise, it's too taxing on their fine motor skills and they get tired, grumpy, and frustrated), or they soon got distracted with the shapes.

The cross-shaped lapbook template
gave Killer an extension idea!

Not everyone (ummm ... the boys) finished their scrapbook page on the day, so they got to work on them throughout the following week.  Little and often is fine -- in some ways, perhaps even better.  Daily, they re-visited the topic and got it reinforced.

In the case of lapbooks, sometimes
little and often is less frustrating for boys
who otherwise find the skills difficult.
Here is Busy Timmy, who is 5, who decided
he liked the look of the Big Uns' lapbooks,
and decided to do the activities himself.

Although I got the images from the internet and chose which ones to use, the templates came from a single site which I'm happy to link you to below. It's here, as well, that you can learn more in general about lapbooks. Just be sure you have plenty of gluesticks on hand, because there's nothing like running out of glue when you want to cut-and-paste your lapbook (trust me, I've been there and it was NOT pretty!)

http://www.homeschoolshare.com/lapbooking_resources.php