Number Lapbook

I love lapbooks. When I found out about them, I didn't grasping how important they could be for homeschoolers. I mean, I am not Miss Crafty.... (well, I guess only for certain things). But definitely, I am a book learner. Definitions, I have to learn them by heart; and I am logic thinker. So my creative side is not very well developed. So that's how I would teach - with LOTS of books. Which can be boring to a six-year old little person..... I knew I had to change something.

Our themed weeks, combined with lapbooks were a huge hit last year. And I have to admit, not only for my son, but for me as well. I learned so much alongside him. It's interesting, creative, and they learn a few skills as well, like cutting along edges. Also I am convinced that this is the first step in learning HOW to gather information. I mean, today, we use the internet alot. But I want my kids to know about libraries and their resources. And that anything in a house can be used as well.


So I came up with an entire list of themed weeks, or simple a week with a lapbook, all the way up until Christmas. Last week, it was all about Numbers and how they are found in our daily life! Coqui is not bad in Math but he doesn't like big work sheets with a bunch of problems (even though he has no problem solving them!). So it was interesting for him to see that we use numbers everywhere.

It started with a presentation of my very own portfolio. I used to study photography, and one class that I took was a Portfolio Class. So mine was about 'Numbers in Everyday Life'. (I kind of figured that there would be too many portfolios with portraits and such, so I wanted to do something less along the norm.)

Then we discovered that numbers are found in his own age, and his height and his weight. That was fun.
We need numbers to measure things, to count, and to tell time. We need it to add and subtract, to multiply and divide. And of course, Money is a huge part of numbers in our life. He liked to count his money in his piggy bank. And after two years, he finally learned to distinguish all the coins.

We went over fractions as well, and it seemed, he understood the general idea of it (if not even more). We use apples to explain and visualize, but pizzas work just as well.

The hand-prints are a cute exercise - I mean which parent does not like its kid's hand outline at any age. We need our hands to help us learn how to count, they are great for adding and subtracting. They also work great for counting by 5s and 10s.

Geometry is just another part of Math, but we did not spend much time on it. Obviously, he knows all his shapes, and anything else at this point would overwhelm him.


To say the least - he enjoyed this lapbook very much and I think it changed his attitude towards numbers.

Hope you enjoyed it.