What Is Notebooking?
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When we started our first year of homeschooling I knew NOTHING about notebooking. I started out with a lot of worksheets (the kind that come in all of those workbooks) and by the end of the year we had a ton of worksheets to show for our first year of homeschooling. We put them all in a binder to keep for our portfolio, but when we look back through our work for that year, it all looks a little messy and the worksheets just don’t bring back special memories.
When I stumbled upon the idea of notebooking, my whole mindset about homeschooling changed. It completely transformed our homeschool and our lives.
How To Begin
The easiest way to begin, as with most things, is to start slow. Choose one subject or topic and after your reading is finished let the children sit down with paper and write about what they learned. You may want to structure this more by giving them more direction with their writing, “Tell about the most important part of the story.” What ever you feel is best.
After the writing is completed you may want to give the child the opportunity to illustrate his page with drawings, images off the internet, maps, charts or whatever else he can think of. Some children really don’t like to draw, like my son, so give them other options to decorate their page.
When completed, file the page in a notebook. You may want one notebook for all subjects, or a separate notebook for each subject.
The idea here is that the child is retelling what he knows in his own words and decorations, and then he may show it to all who will sit and listen. In this way he is reviewing again and again what he has learned and teaching others too.
Start slow, and make up your own rules. There is no right or wrong here…just have fun!
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