Today I will show you how to make shutter lapbooking templates and flap book templates. These are some of my favorites to make because a) they are easy to draw and b) they are exceptionally versatile. You can adapt these to almost any information you want to share.
To begin, the names shutter book and flap book are somewhat interchangeable. Both have information or prompts on one side and room to write the answer under the flap. Below is an example meant to teach about international cities.
The student will cut the book out on the solid lines. They will then fold the four corner sections toward the center on the dotted lines—keeping the image on the outside cover. Now they will flip the book over, open the four flaps, and write about each city underneath the flap and the corresponding portion of the book for that city.
You can ask the student to write anything you’d like in the flap book. They could write three key facts about the city. They could answer questions you include in your directions. The options are limitless, which is one of the reasons flap books and shutter books are so much fun to make.
When finished, the student will glue the center back section of the lapbook to the file folder. You’ll see that in this example, the finished product looks like a window with shutters closed over it.
But flap books aren’t limited to four corner sections. You can have any (reasonable!) number of sections to fold over. Look at this next example for teaching about music:
This flap book has seven flaps that will all fold down to the bottom. Information can be written about the symbols under the flaps and on the corresponding part of the back that they fold over top of. When finished, the solid back section will be glued to the lapbook itself.
In order to create your flap book or shutter template, first determine how many facts you want the student to work with. Next, determine the maximum size of your lapbook and draw an outer rectangle to match. Now begin dividing your rectangle up into the sections you need. Use solid lines for cutting lines and dotted lines for folding lines.
You may have to play with your template a few times to get everything where you need it to be. I have drafted more than one lapbook template that had the pictures upside down for the finished product!
Play with your ideas and have fun! And if you make an upside down template, try not to be too hard on yourself! Take a break and then go turn all your pictures right side up!
Let me know how your shutter or flap book projects work out in the comments!
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