Lapbook vs. notebook

I've been strangely silent, I know.  Life has been a bit crazy here for us.  I was met 2 weeks ago with two of my daughters wanting to attend public school this year, just 4 days before school started, so I had to get them enrolled and then go get school supplies and lunch stuff and open house, bus stop assignment, all that great stuff.  They have been in school a week and a half now, and are doing excellent.  These two thrive in that type of environment, so it was a good decision that they made.  Lydia and Kimmy are quite enjoying their days at school, and have no issues with homework afterward.

Melissa and Jordan, obviously, are still learning at home.  This means that I had to completely rethink my plan for the school year in the subjects we've combined (science and history, geography, social studies).  I no longer can aim my lesson materials at my middle two children and add in for the oldest and youngest of the 4, as my middle 2 are attending school.  So we are changing up the year.  It will go pretty well I think, as I've decided to split the two girls up and let them learn more on their own terms.

Now, on to the real purpose of this post......

One of the things I chose to do with the girls is that they will each have a literature study each month.  I already have September's literature units picked out for the two.  Jordan will do American Tall Tales, using the Evan-Moor literature pockets set of tall tales.  Melissa will do a literature study on the book "Island of the Blue Dolphins" this month.  It is Melissa's study that I need a little help with.

I have already purchased the Kindle version of the book and loaded it on both Kindles that we own.  I also obtained the unit study from Hands of A Child last year when they offered it as a freebie.  I have both the lapbooking set and the notebooking set.  Currently, I am sitting here trying to decide which set I should assign to Melissa to do for this study.  She has done both lapbooks and notebooking but has no preference of one over the other, so she has no opinion on which to assign to her.

For those of you who read my blog but do not know what lapbooking or notebooking is (yes I know who you are!), a lapbook is pretty much taking a couple file folders and refolding them and gluing them together to make a book of sorts.  Inside you glue little paper minibook flap things, wheels, pockets for cards, stuff like that with information you write on/in them.  It is pretty cool, we've really enjoyed making them in the past as the kids were younger.  If you dig through my blog I'm sure you will find pictures of what we've done for lapbooks in the past.

Notebooking is a bit different.  Instead of having a little flap book or something like that to write the info on, you have a journal paper type page and you write down the stuff and there may be an area to draw out illustrations or glue pictures you find and cut out.  You can punch the pages and put into a 3 ring binder, or store in a folder, or just about anything (including spiral binding to store like a book).

I'm weighing the ups and downs of both choices still.  With both options, there are a LOT of templates to choose from and different ways to layout the material.  With notebooking, you can do some pages laid out like a newspaper with different "articles" written about the characters or the locations, events, things like that.  You can do a similar page with a lapbook, then just fold it up and put in a pocket glued into the file folder to store it (label the pocket though so you know what is in it!).  Both allow you do have many different aspects to your project.  The biggest difference I can think of is the space for each thing.  A lapbook, you are limited to the size of the mini-book for how much you can write so it is important to choose the templates carefully for each piece you want to add.  With a notebook, you can write as much or as little as you want on the page.  That makes for a pro to notebooking and con for lapbooking.  But, to flip it a notebook feels so plain and kind of dull and lacking creativity in design, while a lapbook you can add clip art, arrange the mini-books however you want, print them on multiple colors of paper if desired (instead of all on white), pretty much the sky is the limit.

Another big thing I need to factor with Missa is the fact that she is both dyslexic AND left-handed, so her handwriting can be difficult to read at times.  Notebooking would allow her more room for her writing and more practice of writing as she writes longer passages, but a lapbook may be better because it will limit the amount of writing so she can focus more on neat penmanship and proper spelling.

I also need to take into consideration that this particular literature unit is listed for grades 4-8 and she's in 5th grade.  She is at the lower end of the range based on her particular abilities, as she is about a year behind in reading and writing skills.  The unit is written as a 10 day project, but is assigned for the entire month so she can work at her speed on it.  If it takes longer than a month to finish, that is fine as I will just assign the next unit when she finishes this one.  If it takes less time, then she can come up with a creative project (art related most likely) related to her literature unit to fill in the rest of the month until her next unit.

So now I turn to those who read my blog.  Should I assign the lapbook or the notebook to Missa for this month?  With the holiday on Monday, I don't have to print off anything until Monday night so she can start it on Tuesday.