Chalk Talk: Inspiration Hits

We are curently reading Charlotte's Web. Before beginning our reading I ask M/T a few questions about what we read the precious day. They do pretty good with recall, but quite a bit seems to be slipping though. When I remind them, they always go "oh yeah, I remember." I've been thinking for the past few days on what I could do to get them to remember the story better. Neither of my kids are auditory listeners, so that is why for science and history (which involve lots and lots of reading) I have planned lots of activities to go along with the study in hopes of reinforcing what they have learned.

However, I want reading to be fun for them. And so far it is. They love when I announce that it's time to read Charlotte's Web and excitedly run to the couch. So I didn't want to make any activity I game up with feel like "work". Saturday night I was cleaning up, and inspiration hit me. A lapbook! M loves doing her shark lapbook. (We also will be lapbooking world history and biology, but those don't start until next week.) So, I hoped online hoping to find a pre-made Charlotte's Web lapbook. It's a pretty popular book, I thought for sure what I wanted would be out there. No such luck. I found a few, but they were geared more for the pre-school age set and didn't involve any type of review whatsoever. So, I decided to make my own. How hard could it be right? Answer: not hard at all, but incredibly time consuming. 5 hours after I started I had only completed pages for chapter 1-6 (the chapter we have read up to so far). However, now that the main frame for the lapbook has been built, and I know what I want, it shouldn't take nearly that long for each remaining chapters. Hopefully the kids will like it.