Does anybody use the Big Fat Notebooks for middle school?

[SKL]

Here's what I'm talking about:  https://smile.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=big+fat+notebook+middle+school

They seem pretty useful, but I am wondering how folks use these with busy kids.

I am targeting retention and study skills.  But they are pretty fat books - one for each subject - so I'm not sure how to work them in.

Thoughts?

[Wheres Toto]

We used the English Language one because I just wanted an overview after trying a bunch of different programs.  I had my son read a chapter, do interactive notebook pages for the topic, and do the quiz at the end of the chapter.   He did seem to retain quite a bit but the answers to the quizzes is right there on the next page so it would be hard to ensure they are doing it without looking.  

I have the science one and we sometimes read through a chapter if it goes with what we are doing in 4-H or class.

[Tsuga]

Never seen it. I can't imagine adding that on to middle school tutorial and interest-driven academic clubs.

For study skills, I much prefer just introducing the bullet journal or a journal and reviewing that nightly. We're starting to get there in 5th.

For retention... sleep. In middle school it's more sleep than anything IMO. Presumably you're looking at retention for high school success. So if that's the case, I'd say focus on reviewing classwork unless it's insufficient, and sleep.