Live & Learn Press

This one is for all you homeschool mommies. Last week at our homeschool support group meeting, we had the owners of Live & Learn come present their idea of Live 'N Learn folders. This is another name for a Lap Book. NOW, before you roll your eyes, groan within and click to read someone else's blog-- STOP!!! I know your pain! I have three boys! I know what it is like to do the dreaded-- P-R-O-J-E-C-T (insert climax music... take your pick). And I also know that I have looked on longingly at the lap book idea wishing if only I could figure out how to make one of those... without having to for-go laundry, dinner and cleaning the house... just so I can create a cool lap book project to go with our latest unit study!

What Live & Learn does is take all the hard work and do it for you. They a) teach you HOW to make these "mini-books" which go INSIDE your folders (e.i. lapbook) that you present your project information on; and b) they have created tons of unit study projects on cd-rom with all the templates for every "mini-book" you would make to go with the study and directions for how to assemble-- DIRECTIONS YOU CAN UNDERSTAND!! AND... they just started working with Apologia Science, and are creating Live 'n Learn notebook "folders" to supplement ALL of Apologia's curriculum. So... for those of you using Apologia Science, you can go to their website, buy the cd rom for your particular series (e.g. Team D. is studying Botony this year) and then have ALL the templates for answering ALL the questions in the form of these "mini-books", attaching them to 3-ring hole punched cardstock and stored in a lovely binder. So, at the end of the study, you will have a great "Lap Book" full of information on your subject, presented in these little "mini-books" that your child created (even if you do all the cutting and s/he does the writing-- or maybe for the littles, you even do the writing as they dictate to you the answers!).

Our first mini-book w/ Botony... pull tabs down-- they have to define "biology" and "botony" on the pull-tabs and give the roots of each

Let's discuss these "mini-books", because that is the heart of what Live & Learn does. Imagine flap books and origami rolled into one. Remember when you were a kid and you folded paper in all those funny ways and wrote 1,2,3,4.. red, yellow, blue, green, then did the little jingle as you manipulated the folded paper "thingy" to find out who you loved? (Rrr.. this is hard when you can't be "hands on"). That is what mini-books are. You fold paper in all different ways and then your child writes information in the flaps, or pull-ups (not the diapers!), or whatever sort of mini-book you made about whatever the topic is s/he is learning. Then, you attach your folded mini-book into a folder, decorate the outside of the folder and voi-la! You have a cool presentation that your kids can be super proud of!

This is the same mini-book with the tabs pulled up so you can see the answers. Isaac(7) did all the cutting and assembly himself-- I helped a little with getting the tabs in their inserts without ripping the paper.

I know, this still seems random and not very well explained. It is sort of a hard idea to explain without being able to give you a visual. My pictures aren't so great, but I tried to give you just an idea-- we just started our Botony folders yesterday. I will continue to post pictures as we make progress. In the meantime, go to their website and check them out! Download some of their free samples, print them out and start folding paper. Once you do that, I think you will get the idea and then the wheels will start turning. The possibilities really are endless!

And the real test??? My boys LOVE IT!!! They made their first little book yesterday and granted, it took a bit more time than I expect it to once we get the hang of what we are doing (I could have done all the cutting for them in advance-- you know, in all my spare time!)... Here is the real clincher for me. They were engaged the ENTIRE time (45 + minutes), they ENJOYED their Botony time (which has been gag before this!), they were SUPER proud of what they had done-- first thing they had to do was show it off to Daddy; AND they DIDN'T EVEN MIND WRITING!!!!

Go check them out: Live & Learn Press

Grace and Peace,
Shari