"Notebooking" is a term used to describe the process of creating a written and illustrated record of learning. Unlike other methods of education which are based on consumable workbooks and texts, notebooking produces a journal of past educational adventures, which can be added to whenever additional learning takes place.
Notebooks are a great way to review information and are an excellent way to share your learning experience with others. You can make your notebook from any kind of paper and use any kind of notebook to keep it in- a spiral bound notepad, a three-ring binder, a scrapbook. You can even bind your pages into a book or do them on the computer. You can make your pages from scratch or start with premade templates. The possibilities are endless.
Notebooking is a great tool for learning and need not be limited to homeschoolers, or even to those of school age. Many adults throughout history, have "done notebooking" before it even had a name. Michelangelo and Thomas Jefferson are two good examples. Teachers in traditional classrooms can and do use it with equal success.
Things To Put in a Notebook Notebooking is a fairly simple concept, but getting started can be rather intimidating. The most common questions from beginners seem to involve the types of information to be included. While there is no "recipe" for notebooking, here are a few ingredients you might like to try:
- Narrations- Writing a short summary of things that have been read, stories that have been listened to, or field trips and activities that have been experienced is a great way to "review" learning and make sure those memories don't get lost. It's also makes it easier to share those memories with others.
- Copywork- Copying great quotes and literature is an excellent way to practice writing skills. You can do a complete notebook of copywork or you can choose appropriate copywork to add to any other notebook. A few ideas you might try are: adding famous speeches to your history notebooks, folk tales to your geography, or quotes from great scientists to your science notebook.
- Maps and Illustrations- These can be drawn or copied and pasted into your notebook, adding beauty and additional information.
- Pictures- These can be cut from magazines, photocopies, or printed clipart. Photographs are another nice addition.
- Interactive Elements- Paper money, food labels, and stamps are great additions to geography notebooks. Pressed flowers or leaves, feathers, and such can be added to your science notebooks. A pocket might be added to a page in your math or language arts journal to hold flash cards or games. Mini books (such as you would put in a lapbook) can be used to add additional "layers" to your notebook pages.
- Book lists- It's handy to have a record of where information was found, in case you need to look it up again.
- Lists of grammar, spelling, or math rules- These help to cement information in your memory and come in handy if you happen to forget.
- Reports or creative writing assignments
- Drawings or Diagrams
- Timelines
- Lab records or field trip reports
- Directions for projects
- Recipes- Cooking traditional foods is a great way to learn both history and geography and recipes make a great addition to your notebooks.
AND . . .
- Anything else you can think of that will fit
Ways To Bind Notebook Pages
As I said before, notebook pages can be kept in a three-ring binder (either in plastic page protectors or three-hole punched). You can also create your notebook in a bound book like a scrapbook or spiral notebook. You can keep it in a folder with prongs, or you can buy a comb binder to bind your pages. If you'd like something a little nicer, you can try the book binding technic at the link below.
A great way to begin notebooking is to have children keep a journal in which they write a brief description of the events of the day. This can be done in a simple spiral bound notebook which can be decorate with scrapbook paper and stickers if desired.
Educational Scrapbooking
A fancier type of notebook is an educational scrapbook. While most notebooks are a collection of frequently added updates detailing the learning process, an educational scrapbook is a more carefully composed artistic display of learning. The pages consist of report-like summaries of the topic and beautifully designed visual elements. Scrapbooking is a more involved, time-consuming process, which might appeal to a more careful or artistic child. Occasional scrapbook pages can also be added as highlights to "regular" notebooks.
Combining Notebooking and Lapbooking
Many notebookers like to combine lapbooking with their notebooking. Lapbooks are basically just another form of notebooking using really small pages. These pages are in the form of minibooks glued into a file folder. These minibooks provide a way for the child to interact with their studies in creative and fun ways.
There are actually several methods you can use to combine lapbooking and notebooking if you want "the best of both worlds." We added notebook pages to my daughter's Thanksgiving lapbookby stapling them to the front of an extension which was taped into the lapbook. We also like to glue our minibooks to cardstock which has been three-hole punched and insert these interactive pages into our notebooks. Or sometimes we just add one minibook onto a notebook page. You can also add notebook pages to your lapbook by attaching a three-prong folder to the back of it or by creating a pocket within your lapbook to hold notebook pages.
Digital Notebooking If your child balks at the idea of all that writing, digital notebooking may be your solution. With digital notebooking, all the work is completed on the computer using a desktop publishing program or a program such as power point. While I have no personal experience with digital notebooking the benefits I can see are:
- acquisition of computer skills in addition to other learning
- expenses as no paper, ink, etc. are involved
- greater versatility
- easier to share with friends and relatives who live far away
- less mess
- it makes notebooking accessible to those with various physical challenges
- kids think it's fun
Notebooking Q & A With Betsy I really want to learn notebooking. How do I start? How do you choose what, how, and when to notebook? ~Debbie
Hi Debbie, my best advice would be to just start. Don't wait until everything "looks" a certain way or you think you have everything you "need". Your kids will surprise you with their creativity.
When I started notebooking I began with history, but this was just me. I love to notebook history because there is so much you can include: historical maps of the civilization, event, empire; quotes from whomever you are studying; and great images you might find online. We love the Usborne Internet Linked World History Encyclopedia! Along with the links to enhance your studies, they also have maps and clipart you can add to your pages.
At the moment, we are working on the dinosaur packet available on my website. We spent a couple days last week reading about dinosaurs. This week we are filling out fact sheets for the dinosaurs and then from those we write up a brief narration about the dinosaur, color the picture, and mark on the map where fossil evidence has been found.
Another really easy way to start is to begin a nature notebook. Just spend some time outside and have the kids look for something interesting to write about. It might be a cluster of lady bugs in a bush or an ant hill. They can take pictures of the things they find and use the pictures to look up what they find. The pictures can be included in their notebook, along with any information they find in their research.
I like to print most of my pages onto 24 lb. paper, but you could use 18 lb. without any problems. I print cover pages onto card stock. If the kids are going to be doing a lot of gluing on a page we might also use card stock. I collect scrapbook materials when I find them on sale. We like to use "fancy" paper behind some of the images as borders or use punched out shapes to dress up the pages. This is not the most important part of notebooking, but once the research is done and the pages are mostly put together you can add all the "frills". ~Betsy
Can you tell me a little bit more about copy work and how you notebook it? ~Jeannie
Jeannie, copywork is means of showing your child how a piece of literature should look and be written. When your child does copywork it is important that they not look at a word and copy one letter at time but look at the whole word and write it. This really helps a lot with spelling. Seeing the proper way to punctuate and the usage the different parts of speech is also a key to copywork. Your child can't help but do better in their writing if they are daily seeing great works of literature and copying them.
Copywork can very easily be brought into notebooking. I keep a bookshelf in my schoolroom with books of poetry, fables and quotes. They also take their copywork from their literature. I also have a binder where I put quotes and scripture verses for them to copy. I still have young children who copy and so I make sure to find very short verses for them. However, since they are used to copywork, I can also give them a longer piece to copy and they might spend a week on it, copying one or two lines a day. I couldn't do this with my older kids when we first started out because it would overwhelm them.
All you need is a basic notebook page for these notebooks. If your child enjoys illustrating make sure there is an illustration box for them to add a drawing to. I like to look for coloring pages for my younger ones and shrink them down to fit onto their pages. I copy it to my desktop, drag it into my drawing program and create a page for them. This way the page is all ready for them to write and color. One of my younger kids enjoys drawing his own pictures and another likes coloring a picture which has already been provided for her. I do have a primary copywork packet available on my website.
Over the years I've done different things to get the kids motivated about doing their copywork . . . I used to keep separate jars with scripture verses, quotes, and poems and they would pull them out and that was their copywork for the day. We still alternate days doing a verse, quote, poem, literature and their choice for each day of the week. Although, like I mentioned before, some selections take more then one day. ~Betsy
I bought the book on inventors and the notebook pages from you, but what do I do with them? How do we study the subject? What is my part and what is my son's part? ~Valerie
Hi Valerie, much of notebooking is having your kids narrate back what is read that day. The pages you purchased will be nice to have him copy his narration onto. Use the fact sheet to fill in the facts as you come to them or have him research the answers over the next few days. Once that is completed, he could use it to write a report on the subject.
If you have the inventors book you could just read through one or two sections a day and have him write about what you read. You can also do further study by checking out books from the library and utilizing the internet.
The empty boxes provided on some pages are for illustrations, such as diagrams. The boxes could also be used to add quotes, maps of where the invention was introduced or the inventors birthplace. You might find a picture of a monument in his honor. If your son enjoys making models he could put something together that relates to what you are studying and add a picture of it to his page.
One other thing about narration . . . I have an 8 year old who narrates to me as I write it on a separate piece of paper. I still have him use primary lines (he's a bit messy) and often use a highlighter, writing in the narration for him to trace over. If his narration is long, we decide together what the most important part of the narration was, and he writes it on the paper. I still add his whole narration to his notebook, but because writing is a struggle for him I don't push it too much. I usually type it out for him. Although, he really enjoys typing and will sometimes type part of them out himself. ~Betsy
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Betsy, her husband Allen and their 6 children are a Christian family who live in Arizona where they have homeschooled for 10 years. Notebooking is a large part of her homeschool. She started
The Notebooking Nook in hopes of helping homeschool parents who are seeking a better and more affordable way of helping their children learn. She enjoys sharing information and resources with other homeschooling families.
Still have questions? Please let me know if I've missed anything . . .
