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    How Do You Begin Notebooking & Notebook Page Templates {Part 2} - 2015-04-30 10:42:44-04

Yesterday we began the topic of homeschool notebooking (as a homeschooling program) with your family.  You can read How Do You Begin Notebooking with Your Family? {Part 1} by clicking here. Today we continue learning about one of the best home school programs for kids, called Notebooking. You’ll also discover where you can get notebook page templates to make it easy for mom.

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Start simple. Start with one topic or one study for each child or for the whole family.

Perhaps the easiest way to start is to let each child begin a notebook of one of their favorite hobbies or passions.

Do you have a child that loves dinosaurs? I do! My youngest son would find spare moments throughout the day to notebook his knowledge of dinosaurs. His head would be stuck in any number of books from the library trying to gather information. That’s where it began for him! Today, he is our leading expert when it comes to dinosaurs.

Perhaps the easiest place to start notebooking with the entire family is with any history or science topic because there are so many ways to dig into these subjects. You could start very simply by asking your children to give a short narration of what was read on a particular day either during your read aloud time or their independent reading time.

If they give you a blank stare, ask them what they found to be most important or interesting about what was studied and encourage them to write about that. If you have younger children, you may need to write down their narrations for them until they are more proficient with the physical skill of writing.

For children who are accustomed to giving short fill-in-the-blank type answers to questions, narration will take some practice to develop. I highly suggest researching the topic of narration for more help in this area. Narration is an invaluable skill that will prove most beneficial in their notebooking studies.

As your family or child continues to dig deeper, add new material to the notebook. The notebook may include any number of pages and collections including, but definitely not limited to:

• written narrations from material studied in books they have read or real life experiences
• collections of quotes from philosophers, experts, missionaries, statesman, etc.
• photographs, ticket stubs, and information from field trips
• maps of places and events studied
• timelines
• drawings from your child’s imagination that express his ideas about the particular topic
• sketches of objects, animals, famous art, or places being studied
• collections of items such as leaves, pressed flowers, and seeds for a study like botany
• pictures from hands-on activities or experiments completed during the study
• nature photos, sketches, and journaled thoughts
• your child’s handwritten copies of favorite scripture, poetry or selections from favorite literature

Ready to get started?

Tomorrow

Grab a few essential supplies: binders (or a binding tool), paper, your favorite arts and crafts supplies and a selection of writing utensils and dig in!

You may also want to invest in some notebooking templates. These templates made notebooking a reality for my family, especially in the early days of our notebooking experiences. Notebooking templates are pages that have been designed with a variety of preprinted lines, frames, borders, and clipart that provide a quickstart to the notebooking process. Use the preprinted lines for your children’s narrations, copywork and other written work. Use the empty frames to add maps, drawings, pictures, and other items.

I became so hooked on using the templates that I began creating my own. Then, after realizing how helpful these templates were to my children, I began to share them with others online.

You can now visit our website, www.NotebookingPages.com, to find our growing collection of free and affordable sets of notebooking templates available for a variety of subjects, studies, and activities.

Ready to make learning a more memorable and meaningful experience for your family?

Get started with notebooking today! Visit us at NotebookingPages.com for more notebooking information, freebies, products, articles, and tips, as well as for a variety of other free homeschooling charts and printables.

(Reprinted with permission from Debra Reed, NotebookingPages.com)