Literature Book Report Lapbook Review

I was given the opportunity to review Knowledge Box Central's Literature Book Report Lapbook. And all I can say is WOW! This is the coolest thing!

A little background: The picklets are given a reading list of books that have to be read during the month for free reading. I do this because I feel reading older books that don't dumb down the language is better than reading some of the newer books. Just one of the little quirks about this homeschooling mom. Anyway, the biggest problem I have with their reading is following through with narration. I like to know they understand what they read. Book reports are blah, you can only assign so many diaramas, oral narration is good but not for every single book. That is where this lapbook comes in.

I recevied this from Knowldge Box Central, for the purpose of review, during the holidays so we didn't get to it as much as I wanted but let me tell you, this is a saving grace. I assigned the picklets one book to read over the holidays and this lapbook in conjunction with it. "Awe, come on. It's the holidays. You said we were taking a break. So unfair!" After I nicely explained this was the only assigned reading book and writingassignment they quietly slipped away before I changed my mind.

They worked individually on this lapbook, a little each day. Some of the mini books were simple like name of book, date of publishing, name of author. Other books required some research like naming other books this author has written. Even others went over things I haven't touched upon yet in my teachings because I hadn't thought about it. One that stands out was to name the type of conflict. This mini book sparked a debate between my boys since they were reading a different book by the same author. I sat back and listened as they "argued" their points. They got to the same answer by using different points. It gave me a greater understanding as to how they think.

Somethings I heard from the picklets was that there were too many mini books. That was easily remedied by my picking the ones they had to do and them picking others that interested them. I also heard there was a lot of writing for some of the books in a little space. From Chip I heard, "This is better than writing a paper!" Well, this is homeschooling and I do try to shake things up and make it fun. From Dill I heard, "The books aren't in order." I didn't quite understand that but upon looking I found what he meant. As Dill was going through, reading the directions and filling out the mini books he found that some of the books were out of order. I can't give a specific example but a hypothetical example would be the page containing mini book number 3 would be in back of mini book number 10. They were also hard to recognize becuase they weren't marked. It made the organizational aspect of the lapbook a bit harder. From Sweet I heard, "I can't find my mini books. The boys took them! I set them right here and they are gone!" A tiny insight as to what our house is like most of the time. Sweet liked the lapbook but told me is isn't as fun as making a diarama.

A couple things that would make the package easier to use would be if the mini books were more identifiable and if there were a type it in feature. Both are minor in the grand scheme of things.

I really liked this lapbook. It is comprehensive, fun and a great addition to our lapbooking collection. I have added this lapbook to the picklets assignments this year. Each one will be unique and different.

6 out of 8 thumbs up from the picklets and myself.