Notebooking

Can you give me ideas about what you guys do to notebook?  I would like to incorporate it in our homeschooling this year. Just have a few questions about the notebooking… do you have one notebook for all subjects or do you have a separate for Bible, history, science, etc.?  Also what were the plastic sheet protectors for – did you punch holes in them?  I really like the idea.  I think it is what we need to help my boys think more about what we are reading, etc.

Sure! I’m just so green at it! LOL! We’ve done it two weeks now! But my kids LOVE it. (I think it’s a tad messy…)

My kids doing their notebook pages

Here’s what we’re doing for notebooking. I put some plastic sheet protectors in their 3-ring binders, empty. Then I have a Rubbermaid container to put scissors, glue, colored paper, etc. in. Each day, I find something for them to “notebook” about. (This might be the hardest part? but it has been easy to think of things so far.) During their own school time, they have to work on the project. Then next morning, while I’m reading aloud to them, they cut and paste and glue and otherwise make a royal mess all over the table. Then they slip their decorated page into one of the plastic sheet protectors in their notebook, to keep their hard work from getting all dog-eared by the end of the school year. They love it!

The first day of school, they decorated the fronts of their binders. The 2nd day, they colored a map of Greece that I had photocopied. The 3rd day, they drew a picture of Cyclops, the one-eyed giant from Greece. The 3rd day, they had to write a story (a silly one). That was our notebooking the first week. This week they wrote more stories, did an assignment in Bible, and did an assignment for science.

This was a picture of a cyclops for history

This was an assignment for Bible

If I don’t know what to assign them, I’m thinking we could write memory verses, copy a poem, and write more stories. Or draw a picture of something they’re learning in science? (Their Apologia science curriculum includes lots of notebooking assignments, thankfully.) NotebookingPages.com has a lot of free printable pages, and if we googled it, you’d find lots more. Of course, these take a lot of ink, so I don’t know how often I’d use all this.

It basically becomes “show and tell” of what they’ve learned, decorated like scrapbooking (much less expensively, in our case). Cindy Rushton does a lot of language arts and creative writing with hers, but I’m not very “creative” with our creative writing, so I don’t know if I’ll do it that much.

Links Online:

• How to Begin Notebooking (be sure to see additional articles in the top left)
• A Nice Notebooking Store, with pages you can print from your computer (easy for getting started)
• Binderized! – an article on how to get started
• Fueling the Fire with Notebooks
• What Is Notebooking (with ideas)
• Notebooking (with samples and pictures)
• Buy plastic sheet protectors on Amazon.com

Hope this was helpful, even though I’m new at this. 🙂

P.S. Just to make you laugh, enjoy this great commercial for Staples. Most homeschool moms feel this way! (I do… School supplies even smell good!)