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Please tell me about notebooking.


Mom2OandE
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We are using notebooking in a variety of ways, and finding we will likely continue it through HS in some way or another. We started with lapbooks from Hands of a Child, but as I am HSing older kids the whole cut and paste thing got tedious. However, we have used them in other ways and created notebooks that work really well for all kinds of topics.

 

For example, we worked on a rental rehab project which the kids were all involved in. We created a notebook with dividers for things like "Safety Rules" where we glued in brochures about electrical safety, ladder safety, etc. plus written rules as we went along, "Samples" for paint chips, carpet samples, etc. We had a journal section where they wrote about each day, and also answered essay questions such as "Imagine you are the renter of this home...who are you, and why are you living here?" which allowed for creative writing. We had a section for "Budget/Finances" where they had to calculate and document all measurements such as mapping out square footage, paint calculations, carpet measurements, and our budget and overruns. We had a photo section and documented it step by step with captions. All in all it turned out really well!

 

Now we are working on a year long Westward Expansion notebook. We are taking 3 lapbooks and doing a few of the activities for notebooking. I found a great resource with workbook pages from Mark Twain publishers (I think that's their name), they will read a few books and write book reports on them, as well as take notes on documentaries we are watching about Lewis and Clark, etc. We are drawing maps and will include them, too.

 

Concurrently we are working on an Elections unit as well, and I found worksheets to use, we will have photos of activities related to the election (we just went to hear Obama speak on the campaign trail yesterday), we are creating charts of things like "What makes for a successful political rally?" and "What are the differences in beliefs between Liberals and Conservatives", and we created a mini poster of each of the various parties and their histories...all included in a notebook format. We are going to include Brain Pop video quizzes and information sheets as well.

 

Another example is we did basic geography terms, and cut out examples from old National Geographics and created pages with definitions and photos of each term. Made a super nice notebook!

 

Really, notebooking can be anything you want it to be...drawings, worksheets, photos, math calculations, maps, essays, book and movie reviews, and even "activities" from traditional lapbook curriculum. We are combining them all, using what I like and ditching what I don't. Our kids love them, and the nice thing is that we have something concrete to support our learning and prove what we have done. HSing through a charter means that is important for us, but likely we'd do notebooking anyway because as the kids get older it is one way to pull an eclectic study all together in one place, and document the learning in an interesting way. Our kids enjoy it and now prefer NOT to use a textbook.

 

Of course, this means more work for Mom as I have to dig up all the resources, but I actually enjoy it a lot and find it a lot of fun!

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Notebooking is a compilation of information about a specific topic. For instance; this summer I did a horse unit study with a group of 3/4th grade girls. We met once a week for 2 1/2 hours (actually much longer if you add in lunch and swimming:)). The girls read a book over a 2 week period at home (i.e. "Brighty" one week, "Justin Morgan Had a Horse", etc). On MOndays, we worked on our notebooks. We had several tabbed sections: Geography (incl maps and flags), breed information, drawing, copywork, glossary, horse info. memory work. We could have also done a whole section on author/artist, etc. The sections can be whatever you want them to be.

 

We'll be using MP's Birds and Amer. Hx for fall but we'll be making notebooks with those too.

I personally have had notebooks (we had a house fire and I haven't re-made them yet) on OAMC, gardening, homeschooling and I currently have a "mom's" notebook. I don't use it all of the time, but I have it with all the current info stuff for when I need it.

 

Cindy Rushton used to be the expert on notebooking- her kids have graduated and she's branched out into other endeavors but you might find some of her older stuff around on re-sale boards.

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We just started notebooking at the end of last year and we love it! We are going to be continuing this year but we also do scrapbooking as well.

 

Here are a few examples of what they put together at the end of the year.

 

Solar System

 

I also joined Notebooking Pages and I really have enjoyed my subscription to them but you can find free templates on line as well.

 

We will do our notebooking for History mainly but also science, including anatomy and chemistry

 

We have notebooks (pre-made from publisher) for Apologia Swimming Creatures and Land Animals

 

And we will continue our State Scrapbook and we will start a World Scrapbook this year as we dive into Expedition Earth.

 

HTH!

Edited by fourcatmom
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Check out my Pinterest "Notebooking" board. I have lots of free resources plus helpful articles for beginning notebooking.

 

http://pinterest.com/hsmama3girls/notebooking/

 

Plus check out my "lapbooking" board. We use a lot of foldables and mini-books in our notebooking

 

http://pinterest.com/hsmama3girls/lapbooking/

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  • 1 month later...
Check out my Pinterest "Notebooking" board. I have lots of free resources plus helpful articles for beginning notebooking.

 

http://pinterest.com/hsmama3girls/notebooking/

 

Plus check out my "lapbooking" board. We use a lot of foldables and mini-books in our notebooking

 

http://pinterest.com/hsmama3girls/lapbooking/

 

Thanks for posting those, I'm following those boards now :)

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The way we notebook is:

-when ever dd reads a book pertaining to what we are studying I take a picture of the book (usually dd holding the book) and have her tell me something she learned from the book if it is non-fiction or what the book was about if it was fiction. Add the pic to what she wrote and it is a notebook page.

-Keep a running info page on the topic we are studying. The topic is the title and there are bullet points going down the page, each bullet is what she narrated about what she learned on the topic for the day

-Drawings she makes about a place, person, animal, or event and something about the picture

-Map work

-a notebook page will contain what books she read on a topic, also what web sites visited, DVDs watched or CDs listened to

-Pictures of any craft or project/experiment with a narration under it

 

Notebook pages can consist of anything you want. In the past I have included flowers we pressed and leaves we collected. Pictures of a field trip, museum brochure, feathers found, pictures of dd eating Chinese food using chopsticks, and more. If I can add what we do to notebook size paper I will, if not I take a picture.

 

I really do not think there is a wrong way to notebook. Each family might do it differently. Some use pre-made pages others(like me) make their own. I think the key is getting what they learned on paper in some form or fashion.

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We are using notebooking in a variety of ways, and finding we will likely continue it through HS in some way or another. We started with lapbooks from Hands of a Child, but as I am HSing older kids the whole cut and paste thing got tedious. However, we have used them in other ways and created notebooks that work really well for all kinds of topics.

 

For example, we worked on a rental rehab project which the kids were all involved in. We created a notebook with dividers for things like "Safety Rules" where we glued in brochures about electrical safety, ladder safety, etc. plus written rules as we went along, "Samples" for paint chips, carpet samples, etc. We had a journal section where they wrote about each day, and also answered essay questions such as "Imagine you are the renter of this home...who are you, and why are you living here?" which allowed for creative writing. We had a section for "Budget/Finances" where they had to calculate and document all measurements such as mapping out square footage, paint calculations, carpet measurements, and our budget and overruns. We had a photo section and documented it step by step with captions. All in all it turned out really well!

 

Now we are working on a year long Westward Expansion notebook. We are taking 3 lapbooks and doing a few of the activities for notebooking. I found a great resource with workbook pages from Mark Twain publishers (I think that's their name), they will read a few books and write book reports on them, as well as take notes on documentaries we are watching about Lewis and Clark, etc. We are drawing maps and will include them, too.

 

Concurrently we are working on an Elections unit as well, and I found worksheets to use, we will have photos of activities related to the election (we just went to hear Obama speak on the campaign trail yesterday), we are creating charts of things like "What makes for a successful political rally?" and "What are the differences in beliefs between Liberals and Conservatives", and we created a mini poster of each of the various parties and their histories...all included in a notebook format. We are going to include Brain Pop video quizzes and information sheets as well.

 

Another example is we did basic geography terms, and cut out examples from old National Geographics and created pages with definitions and photos of each term. Made a super nice notebook!

 

Really, notebooking can be anything you want it to be...drawings, worksheets, photos, math calculations, maps, essays, book and movie reviews, and even "activities" from traditional lapbook curriculum. We are combining them all, using what I like and ditching what I don't. Our kids love them, and the nice thing is that we have something concrete to support our learning and prove what we have done. HSing through a charter means that is important for us, but likely we'd do notebooking anyway because as the kids get older it is one way to pull an eclectic study all together in one place, and document the learning in an interesting way. Our kids enjoy it and now prefer NOT to use a textbook.

 

Of course, this means more work for Mom as I have to dig up all the resources, but I actually enjoy it a lot and find it a lot of fun!

 

Hijack-could you share your election resources? Thanks!

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History Portfolios is another product to help one notebook. The TMs are a great help for me. They help me come up with ideas to fill notebooks.

 

Ooooh, nice!

 

We just resumed notebooking recently. Mostly, we use it in conjunction with the WTM approach to history, but we also use it for science. For history, we might do a page on, say, cheops, and include an image, books read, informatio, etc. For an invention, we would do something similar. For science, younger wll use pages to write about worms, drawa picture, label the parts..he likes to do pop out elements with vocabulary on them......

 

I will try and post photos later!

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We really enjoy notebooking. Sometimes we use premade pages either purchased or found free, and other times the girls illustrate and create their own. My blog below has some ideas on it. My favorite notebooking place is The Notebooking Fairy. She has an ongoing series now about 50 things to put into notebooks, very creative and enlightening ideas!

 

We're trying to branch out into science instead of mainly history. We've used the notebookingpages.com pages for ancients, and that went nicely, and we have a lot of pages left over for later years.

 

Here is my Pinterest page for notebooking, although I have put notebooking ideas into each subject also. I'm trying to put them into the notebooking folder.

Edited by 3peasinapod
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