Thanks for visiting our Reviews Page. Here, you will find reviews of our products. If you would like to add your review, please send it to cyndi@knowledgeboxcentral.com.
** Review by Cathy Duffy
Lapbooks offer hands-on, creative approaches for researching and recording information, creating study tools, and summarizing or illustrating what a student has learned. In short lapbooks are a tool for organizing and presenting learning on a particular topic. These are especially useful with unit studies, but they will also work with other educational approaches.
Lapbooks are constructed from three, colored file folders that are cut, folded, and glued to create a single, complex folder. Smaller "booklets" are created and attached within it. (See the illustration to the right.) Knowledge Box Central provides the instructions, templates for the booklets, questions or directions for the student for each booklet. The small booklets are where the creativity shines. It's hard to find two alike from lapbook to lapbook. They fold like accordions, have inserts, twirl around brads like spinners, or have multiple layers--the permutations are endless.
Many lapbook kits also include background information, although some will require research. Some lapbooks were created specically to correlate with Jeannie Fulbright's Exploring Creation science textbooks (published by Apologia.) Some correlate with Tapestry of Grace studies. All can be used independent of any particular curriculum. There are lapbooks for History and Geography (such as the Ancient Egypt Lapbook), Science, Bible and Character Building, Holidays, Book Reports, and Interviews with Grandmother or Grandfather.
Knowledge Box Central offers lapbooks in a variety of formats: ebook (download), CD, printed version with templates, and assembled version. Only selected titles are available assembled. As you can tell from the photo above, these are relatively complex projects that take a bit of time to put together, before students even begin to enter information. If you have students who enjoy the arts and crafts part of it (or if you do yourself), by all means get a do-it-yourself version. If you're short on time and/or inclination to do all the cut-and-paste work, go for the assembled versions. (Check their website to see which are available in the various formats.) Obviously prices will vary depending upon the format. Base prices for ebook versions are mostly in the $15-$20 range, with complete course lapbooks sets for some of the Exploring Creation Lapbooks selling for about $37. Prices are higher for CDs, printed, and assembled versions.
Lapbooks might be a great way to motivate students who prefer arts and crafts to research and writing. Other students might enjoy them simply because this is a different, more creative way to learn and present information.
** Review by Rainbow Resource
Lapbooks are made of refolded and connected colored file folders. Then, utilizing the miniature book concept of Dinah Zike, the student prepares and attaches various small books to the file folders. These books are a way of recording information learned in a particular course or study and presenting it in an interesting and high-recall sort of way. Wouldn’t you find it easier to remember the parts of a feather if the information were displayed in a feather-shaped book?
Although anyone can start “from scratch” and make their own lapbook for any subject or study, much of the work has been done for you with these CD-ROMs and kits from Knowledge Box Central. The CD version allows you to print the small books and compile/attach them as you progress through the study. It also allows you to economically provide for multiple students (such as a co-op class) but does not include any file folders. The pre-printed version provides all the printouts and file folders needed, but you must cut out and put the books together as you add the information. The pre-assembled version does all the cutting and assembling work for you leaving only the need to fill in the information. My first thought was that I would prefer the pre-assembled version saving me all that messy work. However, further contemplation brought me to the conclusion that there would be more educational value to “building” the lapbook as the student progressed through the course.
Although correlated to the Apologia elementary science courses, much of the information is general enough to be used with any similar study. There are two lapbooks for each Apologia course, each covering half of the course lessons. ~ Janice
** Customer Reviews Regarding Customer Service
Good morning;
Just a short note to thank you for excellent customer service as always. I have
never been able to sign in and get my order the standard way on your website for
some reason (probably me:0) and you have always promptly fixed my problem by
emailing it to me as an attachment. For this I really must thank you - I don't
feel quite so technology deficient with help like you provide. I appreciate
it.
God Bless you;
Trish
Thanks Scott! I really didn’t expect anything at all, so this is a pleasant surprise. Most companies would not have taken the time to look into this (especially without the order #). I do have every intention of ordering more lapbooks from knowledge box, as they are the best out there. Your customer service on this issue was amazing. Keep up the good work!
Lori** Customer Review Regarding "Exploring Creation With Astronomy"
I would like you to know that we were so pleased with the first lapbook (Exploring Creation with Astronomy lessons 1-6) that I am ordering it for lessons 7-12. Thank you for such a fine product. My boys (grades 6 & 8) are learning and enjoying writing in each booklet. I hope to use the lapbook as review and for having them show other family members what they have learned. The E book format worked great for me. I printed everything out for my boys on white cardstock and we were able to begin immediately and not have the shipping time wait.
Again, thanks again for such a fine product!
Susan
** Customer Review of "Stages of the Ages (TM) Timeline Notebook"
I am very pleased with the Stages of the Ages timeline. It’s so much more than I expected! My kids are anxious to get started with creating their own notebook timelines and as they’ve been watching me assemble their books, they’re even more excited!
My favorite part of the timeline is the flexibility aspect. I’d purchased a spiral bound timeline notebook in the past, but I was so apprehensive about adhering things in the wrong spot or finding more important things to include after a page filled, that I scared myself right out of using it. With this timeline, I’m ready to jump in and get started, since I have the flexibility to reprint a single page, if necessary, or add pages to particularly full time periods. I also love the inclusion of maps. I think that it will be much easier for our family to maintain both the timeline and maps at the same time, rather than trying to keep 2 separate notebooks on track.
One thing to watch out for – the instructions for assembly were great and very clear, but somehow I must have thought I knew what I was doing and I didn’t pay attention to the chart that VERY clearly explained which map goes on the back of which history page. I painstakingly printed the map from each time period onto the back of the history page of the same time period, which made that entire section one page off. It was a pretty costly blunder. But again, it was totally my fault and I only mention it to caution anyone that might make that same mistake.
Thank you, Kinney Family, (for I know that those of you that weren’t involved in the creation of the notebook were still involved in sacrificing while others in your family created it...), for this invaluable homeschooling tool. I’m bringing a completed notebook to church tomorrow, because several friends have heard me mention it and want to see it first hand.
Sincerely,
Jan
