TWTM Notebooks: If you use them, how do you make them work?

[Critterfixer]

I'm not good at the notebook thing. I love the theory. I've got the notebooks and the divisions. And in three years going on four I cannot make the things work.

I hate filing papers.

I never know what to keep.

I hate feeling like that bad person who kills all the trees at the end of the year when it comes time to throw out the papers. (Guess what I did today? :glare: )

The boys never bother to look at their notebooks, and I've not pressed the issue, because I don't know what is worthy of going in the notebook!

 

But I want to use the notebooks. We like paper, we like to write, we like to have things to display with pride. But how can I make these things worth keeping, instead of just dusting them on Tuesdays?

[smudge]

:lurk5: beginning HS soon and need pointers....

[CookieMonster]

_{Very same boat here, three years into homeschooling.}

[Critterfixer]

Glad to see I'm not alone.

 

Here is what I want the notebooks to be:

1) Something the boys can be proud of. A measure of accomplishment and completion. Often it feels as if we just go from one thing to the next hard thing, to the next harder thing. I'd like to be able to point out to them how much they have done and how much they have learned when they feel discouraged.

2) Something to facilitate review. My boys need copious review for retention. I don't know why, it just is. The notebooks would be the primary review tool, and I could basically have a review day for a subject per week, where they would go back and read through their narrations, notes, etc. We are doing a notebook for Latin and it has been very valuable so far. So I'd like the notebooks to do that.

3) Something to provide teaching power when I'm not around. I'm working more this summer, and I don't know what's coming this fall. Everyone is working on more independence in their work. And the boys are on board with this--I think they like being responsible for doing their work and seeing the satisfaction of knowing that when they are done they are DONE. But sometimes they get stuck in a problem and rather than ask for help at the first sign of trouble, I'd like them to be able to reference work done before as a guide, as well as consulting their books or their grandmothers.

4) I want them to be more in charge of the notebooks. I hate filing. I'd rather it be kept up with IN THE NOTEBOOK, and not be subject to the transfer station of my desk more than is needed.

 

Feel free to add to the list.

What should a good notebook do?

 

Edit:

5) I'd like to use them as ways to issue rewards or just general encouraging statements. I can picture them turning to do grammar or spelling when I'm not around and finding a pack of skittles or a candy bar taped to a page, or a page that says "Great Job, kid, take the day off from Grammar!"

Or have some pre-arranged things with the grandmothers where a page in spelling could read, "You've done so well this week! Ask Nana about going to the library/park/pizza place today!"

[Critterfixer]

Nobody got nothin?

 

OK. Well, I'm putting down some goals and ways to work on them this go around. I think I'll set up my notebooks for a quarter at a time and see how that goes. I'll take pics, lay out the plans and see what happens.

 

Edit: Of course it could be that this is old hat and everybody on the forum but me has it sorted out. :tongue_smilie:

[2_girls_mommy]

What grade and subject are you specifically asking about? I use WTM notebooks (I think) just as most are described in the book. My grammar stage dd has a 3 ring binder "notebook" for SOTW w/no tabs. Then she has one for L.A. She doesn't have one for science this year because we did Apologia and used their prepurchased notebook. Then my logic stage 5th grader has a binder w/the tabs for history and one for L.A. and one for science. They each have designed their own "notebook" for Bible studies this year, but it is using a composition notebook, taking notes, glueing things in, and decorating and drawing. We did it differently than the WTM style.

 

So which subject notebook could I describe for you (tell you what we put in) so that I don't have to do them all for you? :)

[Chris in VA]

We kept a notebook for grammar-stage history. Basically, we did one chapter of SOTW each week, and each week did a notebook page/narration. Behind it, we put a coloring page, map, and any descriptions/pictures of activities. Loved looking over them! We did a separate, simple notebook timeline (really just construction paper turned sideways, with a long line drawn across each page and a span of years).

I suppose you could use notebooks to make up little quiz game questions or whatever, but we just enjoyed going back thru them. I have samples of dd's work on my old blog if you want to look at examples of history pages and nature notebook pages, but they are pretty straightforward.

[serendipitous journey]

Nobody got nothin?

 

OK. Well, I'm putting down some goals and ways to work on them this go around. I think I'll set up my notebooks for a quarter at a time and see how that goes. I'll take pics, lay out the plans and see what happens.

 

Edit: Of course it could be that this is old hat and everybody on the forum but me has it sorted out. :tongue_smilie:

 

:lol:

 

well, I didn't even look at this at first because 1) we don't do TWTM anything (not for lack of trying!!!) and 2) I didn't see it was you posting. I just hit this tonight hoping that I'd catch hints on making Proper TWTM work for my clever, intense, sensitive, history- and DK- and encyclopedia-detesting child.

 

Sigh.

 

OTOH, here's what we do with notebooks that works Pretty Well:

 

Supplies:

* 3-ring D-style binders, 1 1/2" or bigger.

* Pocket binder dividers (like these). Note: those Avery tabs have rainbow colors that make me happy. I get some 8-packs, some 5-packs, try to have an extra of each on hand year-round.

* I have one of those Brother Labelmakers that the Getting Things Done book recommends, and I use this to make labels for my dividers.

* Normal people have lined "notebook" paper and I should, too. You might want some.

* Pens. This is for memory work. If it's inked it's easier for me to read.

* hole reinforcers -- those little sticky donut shapes to fix torn notebook page holes.

* a three-hole punch.

* maybe those clear inserts that let you stick pages in without punching them -- sheet protectors. I rarely used these this year.

 

For our subject notebooks, at some point early-ish in the year I notice what we are actually doing and set up the notebook with slots for those things. I also have a Curriculum notebook that I use for all things general and for our charter paperwork. It is my first meeting with my charter "teacher" that motivates me to do this original setup.

 

Here's what our subject books are like this year (more or less -- we are a Work In Progress)

* Math: much content lives in books (Singapore workbook, textbook, Sprints, &c). I have a tab for Calculadder drill pages, for MEP stuff, and for Living Math pages from various books.

* History/Geography: tabs for SOTW activity book pages, and for each resource I have A. narrate from. I often type his narrations and stick these in behind their tabs.

* Science: tabs for each curriculum.

* Reading/Writing: tabs for Handwriting, Spelling, and KISS grammar. His IEW work has its own folder at the moment, and Winning with Writing is spiral-bound, Grammar Island so far lives in its little book, and I've not been doing anything about our literature (he's in 2nd grade -- 3rd will have some sort of literature record).

 

Our Curriculum book:

* Memory work at the very beginning. I have pages for different subjects, but keep the memory stuff all here (except the IEW poems, which has its own spiral bound book). Next year I'm going to tab each subject in this section because they are getting big. We have math, grammar, Latin and a tiny bit of science going now.

* charter school stuff with its own tab

* a tab for book lists & other resource lists

 

If you want to set the boys up for independence, I would suggest keeping memory work as a separate part of their subject books if not in a single memory notebook. It is hard for kids to figure out what to remember from their daily work pages. I like the split-page system where you put a word/name on one side of the page and the information on the other -- then the child can study either direction ("noun" -- oh, that's a word that names a thing; or they could cover the words and work from definitions: "a word that names a thing" -- oh, that's a noun).

 

You may want to figure out ahead of time (this summer?) what their memory work should include and have them enter it as they go or something like that?

 

Schedule review of memory work daily at first, then maybe every other day and then weekly and so on. You can make it easy for the grandmothers to check memory work if you have split sheets set up. You can either test the child "cold" or let them review ahead of time -- if they review, then you can motivate them by making it a one-shot quiz if they miss only one or two items; any more errors or problems than that and they have to study & re-quiz (preferably a bit later in the day, or the next day). This strategy has the added bonus of teaching them to study. (at least I hope it does!!!)

 

at any rate, that is how we are using our notebooks in Real Life. We aren't getting much job satisfaction out of them b/c we never review them. I have used them to monitor his narration progress. And very time A. finishes a resource (Singapore level, spelling level, &c) we have a little party: store-bought cupcakes (the very best kind, according to my 7yo) with his grandparents.

[K&Rs Mom]

This is really our first year bothering with notebooks (3rd & 5th grades), and we just do them for history & science. As I read SOTW, they take notes (this only came after some practice in outlining from IEW); I copy a few pages of mapwork at a time and when I want them to do a map I tell them to turn to map #30 or whatever and read the directions; there is a section of blank lined paper for writing "reports" on historical figures; after they take a test & I correct it, they put that in their binder; there is a section for "activities" like when we make something from the AG, but it seems that doesn't get much use. So there's no filing on my part - I helped them set up the notebook at the start of the book (was January for us), and now I just provide the copies of tests or maps as needed.

 

I don't know yet about keeping them long-term, but my current plan is to either spiral-bind (any excuse to use my proclick) or just put the entire binder as-is on the bookshelf. They have a magazine file full of old lapbooks, and now & then just get them out to look over, and see how sloppy they wrote when they were five, and it's always fun, so I'm guessing the binders will be the same.

 

Their science notebooks are less formal: 8yo just has a composition book where she writes definitions & experiments, 10yo has a binder with dividers but we're more casual about it. I think those are more for using the act of writing to cement the ideas in their heads, and may not be worth the long-term storage that the history ones are becoming.

[La Texican]

I splurge on three ring binder page protector packs (speaking of save the planet <blushes>) because I like the way they feel and it make is want to look through the notebooks. It's not the same feeling as a photo album because the pages aren't stiff but the smooth plastic texture definately adds to the viewing pleasure.

We're newbies so we have book reports including one copywork sentence each in the language arts book, World History Encyclopedia page summaries in the history notebook, with illustrated drawings, in order from the book. When that's done it will be a brief walk through of world history. The science notebook is a journal of his science projects. oh . The history notebook is two sections. In one section he's tracing State maps from Imagen Forte's "our fifty states". I just took pics of a couple. Let me resize & I'll post them because they're supercute.

[EmilyGF]

I have my kids file their own papers immediately after producing them.

 

Emily

[La Texican]

This is the picture of an early ancient drumming on a skull for music. The handingwriting is mine, the sumnary is from my kid.

[La Texican]

This is where I told him to cut out pictures of the things he has from a science catalog. I showed him how to make a chart out of the items he has and how many. I expect to show him for a year or two what I want the work in the notebook to look like and then have him take over completely.

Nevermind, I don't have time to shrink photos today. T-ball game in one hour. I've got a cute one in the science book where he figured out red and yellow does not make orange it makes red. He tried mixing food coloring water and colored pencil and wrote down, "Red and yellow make orange. I don't think so. Red and yellow make red."

[mamamindy]

Thanks for posting. I wasn't sure how to "do notebooking" :confused1: Thankful for the suggestions. :D

[La Texican]

I recently read the well trained mind. What I got from it is that if you show the kids what you want them doing in their notebooks (book reports, outlining history notes) you have them tell you their summaries orally and you write it down. This way they learn what you want them to do without the frusteration of tons of writing on top of it. After a year or two you switch, you dictate it and they write it. After another year or two they can do good quality notebooking work on their own. The first run through history you are telling stories and introducing names. This is laying the framework for the next run through a few years later where they will be doing all of the writing and a lot of memorizing facts and details. A few years later they will run through the entire overview of world history and American history. That time they will be arguing opinions about history and backing it up with facts and references. That's for the history notebook. I have two sections in my kids history notebook. One is his tracing of the American States. Later this year or next he can file his written reports from American history under the correct states map. I made a timeline to go with the world history section. 58 index cards for 128 years each and pinned a border across the top of two walls in one of my rooms. Each card has a horizontal line across the middle and a start date on one side and an end date on the other. I'm writing events onto the timeline as we add them into the notebook. For the notebook pages my kid summarizes the history we just read. I write down what he said. He draws a picture on it. It goes in the page protector in the notebook. This is really good practice to teach him outling study notes, finding the main idea. Since I'm writing and not him he doesn't skimp on words and ideas trying to get away with writing less.

[Down_the_Rabbit_Hole]

Not sure if this will help but we make actual books from their notebooks. I keep everything in a folder type thingy and at the end of the year I have it spiral bound. Last year and this year we made individual books for each subject, science got a few because we did a human body study, a plant study, and animal study, and an Astronomy study.

 

As to what goes into it...well that takes work on my part. I make sure we generate papers for the book. Drawings, narrations, book lists, pictures, reports, and anything related to the topic we encountered/did. It has been a work in process for me because I never was one to take lots of pictures of school work. Now I make sure to do that, take pictures of things as they are happening and the finished project. I have dd narrate about the pictures. Dd likes to draw so this works to my advantage but ds hates to draw so for him we use the computer to generate pictures. I do lots of printing out pictures he finds.

 

If the subject (science, language...) does not produce enough paperwork for a whole book to be made, combine all the subjects and add dividers before spiral binding them. I did this for dd when she was in K .

 

I think the thing is, if all the work a child does is just going to be stuck in a binder and boxed up or thrown out then they see no value in the work. But by letting them know what will happen to the work and how it is going to be saved, shows them you care about the work more then just a box to check off.

 

Generating notebook pages:

make a time line

books read

activities done

make book report ...could be as simple as a picture of your child and the book with his rendition of the book and if he liked it or not

Daily journal of what was learned in 3 sentences or less for each day

lists

creative writings

art work

scrapbook style pages of collections from places related that you visited

DVD page

documentary page

internet page

 

really it is what ever you want to add that you think will help the notebook look good.

 

As I said , it is work on your part, but if you show interest it will spread.

Here are pictures of some old books we made.

[serendipitous journey]

Down the Rabbit Hole, I am so glad you shared this idea of having the notebooks bound -- what a simple way to create a contained and comprehensive memento! This is something that we could easily keep for years and years ....

 

thanks again!

[marylandhsmom]

Not sure if this will help but we make actual books from their notebooks. I keep everything in a folder type thingy and at the end of the year I have it spiral bound. Last year and this year we made individual books for each subject, science got a few because we did a human body study, a plant study, and animal study, and an Astronomy study.

 

As to what goes into it...well that takes work on my part. I make sure we generate papers for the book. Drawings, narrations, book lists, pictures, reports, and anything related to the topic we encountered/did. It has been a work in process for me because I never was one to take lots of pictures of school work. Now I make sure to do that, take pictures of things as they are happening and the finished project. I have dd narrate about the pictures. Dd likes to draw so this works to my advantage but ds hates to draw so for him we use the computer to generate pictures. I do lots of printing out pictures he finds.

 

If the subject (science, language...) does not produce enough paperwork for a whole book to be made, combine all the subjects and add dividers before spiral binding them. I did this for dd when she was in K .

 

I think the thing is, if all the work a child does is just going to be stuck in a binder and boxed up or thrown out then they see no value in the work. But by letting them know what will happen to the work and how it is going to be saved, shows them you care about the work more then just a box to check off.

 

Generating notebook pages:

make a time line

books read

activities done

make book report ...could be as simple as a picture of your child and the book with his rendition of the book and if he liked it or not

Daily journal of what was learned in 3 sentences or less for each day

lists

creative writings

art work

scrapbook style pages of collections from places related that you visited

DVD page

documentary page

internet page

 

really it is what ever you want to add that you think will help the notebook look good.

 

As I said , it is work on your part, but if you show interest it will spread.

Here are pictures of some old books we made.

 

This is awesome! Thank you for sharing! I am not very computer savvy and this will sound ridiculous...but did you make those title pages in MSWord? If not which program did you use? Thanks!!

[Down_the_Rabbit_Hole]

This is awesome! Thank you for sharing! I am not very computer savvy and this will sound ridiculous...but did you make those title pages in MSWord? If not which program did you use? Thanks!!

Thank you and I used Open Office but I am sure any word program will work.

[Critterfixer]

Some good ideas. I will certainly want some of the tabbed dividers. I have been making the divisions myself, but they don't stick up, so you have to turn through the whole notebook to get to the section you want.

 

It's not that I'm lazy (well, not too lazy) but I just don't get around to filing that often. I think I'm just going to have to set my daily schedule up for decaf tea and filing in the evenings. That doesn't sound too bad.

 

I'm not a big fan of keeping notebooks unless they do some work. So I've been working on some ways to make them more effective and I think the biggest thing here is going to be loading the suckers ahead of time with the work. Then they can look over what is to be done as well as what has been done, sort of like having the text books/workbooks all present at once. Thinking about cutting some bindings on our workbooks, but I'm scared! I may hyperventilate when "injuring" my precious books.

 

Edit: My guys are going into fourth grade. I really like the idea of the notebooks as laid out in TWTM, the only difference being that I want a math notebook because I do use some MEP, I have some word-problem workbooks, etc. Pretty is OK, but really, I want these things to be functional study helpers, a place to go to review, a memory aid...in short, they have to WORK.

[serendipitous journey]

RE the filing: FWIW it's helped me enormously to have pocketed tabs for this, or at the very least notebooks with pockets on the hard covers. Just stick pages in pockets as you go and you can organize them later. This also helps for when your work doesn't have a good/appropriate place to file -- tuck it in the pocket of the best-fit notebook, deal with it when you have time.

 

I've taken to doing a FlyLady style "boogie" for our school paper area -- set the timer for 3" once or twice a day, do what I can. When I do this daily it quickly cuts the stack down; and then when I'm lazy too busy it accumulates again. ;)

 

...Thinking about cutting some bindings on our workbooks, but I'm scared! I may hyperventilate when "injuring" my precious books.

 

Cutting and hole-punching books ahead of time is one of the best things I've done to facilitate notebooks.

 

Edit: My guys are going into fourth grade. I really like the idea of the notebooks as laid out in TWTM, the only difference being that I want a math notebook because I do use some MEP, I have some word-problem workbooks, etc. Pretty is OK, but really, I want these things to be functional study helpers, a place to go to review, a memory aid...in short, they have to WORK.

 

Do you do WTM-style history? I don't want to drag your thread off-topic, but at the moment I'm planning to transition Button (who is highly history-resistant) to a WTM-ish/classical history in 5th grade, but then thought we might be better served by doing it next year (3rd) just to get us in practice. Not sure ... I would like to foster an interest and not just require work during the early years ... any thoughts? I could PM you if you prefer not to de-rail!

 

ETA: for 4th grade, would it be practical to have the children do their own filing?

[Critterfixer]

Do you do WTM-style history? I don't want to drag your thread off-topic, but at the moment I'm planning to transition Button (who is highly history-resistant) to a WTM-ish/classical history in 5th grade, but then thought we might be better served by doing it next year (3rd) just to get us in practice. Not sure ... I would like to foster an interest and not just require work during the early years ... any thoughts? I could PM you if you prefer not to de-rail!

 

ETA: for 4th grade, would it be practical to have the children do their own filing?

 

I wouldn't consider it a derail. I want to do WTM-style history. I try to do WTM-style history. What we end up doing is reading it out-loud mostly and retaining nothing. Or close to nothing. But I'm doing something with Latin and Roman History that actually does seem to be working right now, and I may end up coming up with something along those lines for SOTW.

What I've done is set up Latin to involve some practice and a history page. At the top they work on the memory work for Roman History (first seven kings of Rome is in the batting box right now, hills of Rome is on deck) and after that they read the section from Famous Men of Rome and then answer questions I've come up with. So far this is getting done...and retention seems to be up, mostly because since I wrote the questions I've a ready list to use for review. Of course I've got to read ahead and compose the questions, but that's ok. I'm a fast reader.

My history notebook is probably going to be history, geography and US history this year. We are working on States and Capitals,and I came up with this great idea of a "National Treasures" box with postcards of many of the natural wonders in the US, having the children pick a card and then we'd do the research. So that would go in the notebook, along with a copy of the card. Couldn't find anything like that in my curriculum catalogs, so I may end up building that one to go with our history/geography study. Maybe we'd do a little map drawing too--the boys are really into that right now.

 

As to the second, I don't know if it is practical or not to have fourth graders doing their own filing. But I can dream, can't I? :lol:

They are pretty good to put their completed work in their own box when they are done. I just need to be better about putting it where it belongs. But I'm thinking if the work is already in the notebooks..for the most part...I wouldn't have to do much filing.

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

I had an "aha" moment during this thread. I have SO MUCH PAPER lying around from SOTW... map page, coloring page, narration page.......... not to mention child-generated art projects, photos... I decided to bite the bullet and ordrered the student pages PDFs from PHP. I am now printing them out 2 per page, so it will be MAP and COLORING PAGE on the front of one sheet of paper. We'll write our dictation on the back, and will have room to add a photo if we do a poject. This reduces (almost) all chapters to just ONE PAGE! So then we can afford to use those slick page covers someone mentioned up thread to make the book fun to flip through!

 

Ooooh I am so excited! We were planning to review the chapters this summer from SOTW1, so we will just make the whole book this summer, then start frehs with SOTW 2 this fall!!!

[Momma2Luke]

Probably a silly question.... but when the WTM refers to keeping a " notebook" - I am assuming this means "binder" right?

Also - this thread has been full of great ideas!

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

Probably a silly question.... but when the WTM refers to keeping a " notebook" - I am assuming this means "binder" right?

Also - this thread has been full of great ideas!

 

Yes. I think you could keep it in a regular spiral bound notebook if you wanted, but you'd have to do so much cutting and taping/gluing of maps, pictures, etc...

[Momma2Luke]

 

Yes. I think you could keep it in a regular spiral bound notebook if you wanted, but you'd have to do so much cutting and taping/gluing of maps, pictures, etc...

 

 

Great thanks!

[Critterfixer]

This reduces (almost) all chapters to just ONE PAGE! So then we can afford to use those slick page covers someone mentioned up thread to make the book fun to flip through!

 

Yep. I do like printing front and back on a page.

I also made up my own master copies for our Latin practice on lined paper and ran them through front and back with the color option on. Presto. Lined paper with my little boxes for grammar forms, vocabulary etc on the front, Roman History on the back.

i'm sure there is an easier way to do that...but, hey.