I’m always looking for ways to add a little extra spark in our studies and notebooking. I’ve blogged before on lapbooking, a fun way to journal our studies, and (I think) on key sheets a style of “learning map” we use to help in our principled studies. (If I don’t explain it in a blog post, it is well explained in Freedom & Simplicity™ in HisStory.) This idea is a combination of those two things.
We’ve done many things to “spice up” our key sheets. And at other times we just take a sheet of paper and draw lines to divide it into quarters. This last term I came up with a new idea that has become a hit!
I designed 1/4 page “book covers” for the authors we studied, with their picture, name, and a heading, on the “front cover”. (In my “sampler” – see below – the children will glue on a picture and write the info themselves.) I printed these on cardstock and we cut them apart and folded in half to make our “book covers”. Then the children made 4 page booklets, 1/4 sheet size, (called “bound books” in Dinah Zike’s Big Book of Books. You could also use mini stapled books.) Then they glued these into their book covers. They wrote one of the four “key sheet” categories on each of the pages and filled in the info for each writer. Ta-da! Fancy, fun key sheet!
These key sheet booklets can then be glued into a regular lapbook, or (as we did) glued – 2, 3, or 4 – onto a sheet of cardstock. (We then slipped these into a page protector in our notebooks.)
I’ll try to get a pic or 2 added to this post later. AND (Lord willing) a “sampler” and full instructions will be our next newsletter Free Gift! So if you are not receiving our monthly newsletter yet, click here to subscribe. In addition to getting monthly news, tips, and ideas from Me and My House, you’ll also get our (near) monthly Free Gifts, including this Lapbook Key Sheets sampler (or whatever name I give it.) 🙂
I am just now digging in to your website. You have so many great ideas. I was wondering though what are “key sheet”s. The little books are a great idea, but I feel like I won’t be able to fully utilize them without this information. During the UHSE I noticed you said you were live blogging and I am amazed at everything you manage to get done, I am not very good at multi-tasking, it was all I could do to listen and try to keep up with the chats. Thanks for the great ideas.
Hi Lisa,
Thanks for commenting.
Key Sheets contain the “key” information you look for when studying a certain thing. When studying a Person we look for their History (Background), their Influences, their Character, and their Contributions. The Key Sheets themselves can be done in a chart type format, or we usually do them as a Learning Map™ (see example in the P.I.P.E. Learning Map™ samples link I provided to UHSE Members on my UHSE Private Members Page). Once you have completed a key sheet (PIPE LM) on the person you can either pick one of the areas to write on, or write on each area. I go into more detail on these in Freedom & Simplicity™ in HisStory.
Blessings!