Cover of Johnny Tremain
We have spent about a week on the American Revolution Lapbook that I downloaded free from Just Us.
Based on the book Johnny Tremain, the lapbook covers all the major events of the revolution such as ~
The Boston Massacre, The Boston Tea Party, Tyranny vs. Liberty, the Declaration of Independence, the Battles of Lexington and Concord and Saratoga, Minute Men, Guns, Valley Forge, Forts, the Treaty of Paris, Government, Sons of Liberty, pride, fear, plus plenty of vocabulary building activities, timelines, maps, definitions, and several scriptures on the topic.
As I shared before in a post on Time-Saving Tips for Doing Lapbooks , we paste in all the minibooks on our lapbook folders before we write in them.
I hate it when the minibooks are crowded and confused on the table and inevitable minibooks get ‘lost’. So, I handed each child their ziplock bag of minibooks (which I had cut out quietly one evening) and some notebook pages and they arranged them and pasted them on the pages as they wished. My youngest chose coloured blank paper instead of the History Notebook pages.
This was a large lapbook download and the girls used 7 to 8 pages each for all the minibooks.
Notebook pages with silver paper file clip on the left
We punched the pages and clipped these in a simple cardboard file folder instead of a lapbook folder. I trimmed the tops and bottoms of the file folders so that they are slightly larger than the notebook pages, but small enough to fit in our files.
File folder trimmed, with duct tape punched to file
Because we would work with the folder for a week, I used my favourite item, duct tape, and taped the side edge to punch and insert in the children’s files.
What is lovely about this system is that we simply take the folder out, grab the coloured pens and we are ready to read, research, discuss, and write. It takes a few minutes to find the minibook, but there is no gluing and faffing about.
The lapbook was a great retrospective activity and an excellent way to consolidate the work we had covered in our History core.
We are still busy reading Johnny Tremain every night. I remembered this book was long the first time I used Sonlight, but it seems to have grown even longer the second time round! :) None the less, the girls enjoy this book even though it is a “boys” book, and it has transported us into the lives and times of the American Revolution era.
If you plan to study American History I suggest you pop over to Just Us an download this lapbook and keep it in a file.
Here’s a planning tip:
Draw up a basic vertical timeline of your History period you wish to study and mark the dates for all the most important events. Then spend some time looking for free downloads, lapbooks, pictures, hands-on activities and jot it on your timeline. This timeline will give you a birds’ eye view of your core, your activities and downloads and the time you need for each theme.
Print out the table of contents with every download and keep this with the lapbook instructions.
Blessings,
Thanks for letting me know you used it. Did you know there are other Johnny Tremain materials as well, like art and writing to go along with the book?
I wish I would have found your site earlier! Your links and pages are a huge blessing and compliment our Classical Conversations curriculum! BLESSINGS on you and your family!!!
Thank you for sharing the “Just Us” website…..I don’t believe I have seen that one before. It looks like they’ve got a lot of great materials!
Absolutely fabulous! We finished up early American History (where we’ll stop until another round in about 2 years). Our American Revolution area in our notebooks was pretty skimpy, and I didn’t have time to search like I wanted to or make like I wanted to. So I’m saving this for our next go-round! Thanks Nadene!
I love your binding idea! Much better than the folding and gluing of file folders! Thank you so much for sharing your tips and the free link. We won’t be close to studying American History for awhile (unless I choose to do it simultaneously to our world history, which I may) but I’m saving it now, definitely!
Thanks again,
Carrie
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Thank you! Exactly what we need for the next two weeks. Also, starting on Johnny Tremain so I’m following in your footsteps almost exactly.
Thank you for sharing all your efforts in this Revolutionary War unit. We are just starting it this week and the timing is perfect. So grateful to have found your blog!
Just found this post and your blog! I’m very new to lapbooks but am excited about having the kids work on something “hands-on” and more in depth for the American Revolution;)