Clear.  Concise.  Full of practical ideas.  Easy to implement.  Very motivating!  Those are phrases that perfectly describe Notebooking Success by my blogging friend, Jimmie.

I’m not new to notebooking.  My children have used this method of narration and writing for years in our homeschool .  But, after reading Jimmie’s e-book, I felt a renewed passion for this excellent method of teaching and learning – and this old dog even learned a few new tricks!

Jimmie’s writing style is so smooth and succinct that you’ll find yourself easily reading all the way through the book in less than 30 minutes.  More importantly, at the end of the 30 minutes, you’ll have all the tools you need to get started (or refreshed) with notebooking right away.

Why incorporate notebooking into your homeschool?  Jimmie answers that.  How is notebooking with a 1^st grader different than a 6^th grader or 10^th grader?  Jimmie answers that.  Doesn’t notebooking get boring for children?  Jimmie answers that.  She covers everything you need to know about notebooking from start to finish, including plenty of grade-specific ideas to get you and your children rolling.

As explained in the book, notebooking works well with just about any type of homeschooler – even those who use a strictly textbook curriculum.  I have often mentioned notebooking to friends who are looking for a “better” way to help their children retain information or for children who need extra motivation for writing.  Now, I’ll be sure to point those people toward Notebooking Success!

Before we read, I have them hop out into the yard to collect whatever nature specimen they need to complete the page or activity. Since they know we’ll be reading for some time, they don’t rush through the assignment and the resulting work has been excellent! Below are just a couple of examples from the Fruits and Nuts and Delightful Deciduous Trees studies.

(Note that my notebooking pages are copied in black and white. All the NaturExplorers notebooking pages are created in full color, but print just fine in black and white if you don’t have a color printer.)

This was another of the projects we did during our Colonial Life unit.  It was super-easy and I loved how the notebooks turned out!

To begin, we found compostition notebooks (the kind where all the pages are sewn together with string and the covers are hard.)  I picked out several scrapbooking papers that complimented each other then the kids cut the papers into various square and rectangle shapes.  We used Mod Podge to decoupage the scrapbooking paper to the notebook covers.

Just in case you don’t know how….To decoupage, you apply Mod Podge (or any liquid glue, really) to the surface you plan to cover.  Place your papers on the glued surface then apply more Mod Podge over top of the papers.  Easy!

We turned our notebooks into new Bible Journals.  As the Bible is read each morning, the kids are taking notes or drawing pictures about the reading to keep their minds more focused. 

]]> http://ourjourneywestward.com/2008/11/decoupaged-notebooks/feed/ 2 http://ourjourneywestward.com/2008/10/13-colonies-lapbooknotebook/ http://ourjourneywestward.com/2008/10/13-colonies-lapbooknotebook/#comments Fri, 31 Oct 2008 13:42:00 +0000 Cindy http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/westward/611628/ We’re finishing up our Thirteen Colonies & Colonial Life Unit this week.  I’ll be posting soon about the biggest chunk of the unit, but I wanted to take a minute to highlight the 13 Colonies lapbook/notebook we put together using this book.

I had to do the legwork of locating library books about each of the Thirteen Colonies, as well as Roanoke, Jamestown and Plymouth.  But the wonderful activity ideas were ready and waiting in the book.  It turned out to be a lovely way to document a bit of info on each of the colonies we learned about.

Caleb’s presentation included a talk about astronaut suits (see his helmet and jet pack?), space shuttles, rockets, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, dehydrated food and thrust.

Mahayla’s presentation included information about the sun, other notable stars, constellations, how to use an astronometer to tell the brightness of stars and some information about light years.

Using Exploring Creation with Astronomy as our main text, we did many of the free notebooking pages the author offers on her website.  We also added in a few lapbooking activities and lots of hands on projects.  I put what we had into modified lapbooks.  The lapbooking activities were glued on the first flap, while the notebooking pages were simply stapled together at the top of the other side.

Our trip to the Answers In Geneis Creation Museum’s Planetarium earlier this year was a great addition to this unit!

Here are a few of the fun website games the kids enjoyed during the unit.

Solar System Trading Cards

Problems in Space

Make Your Own Solar System

This past week, I asked them each to choose the civilization that was their favorite and create a presentation about it.  They could choose to present their information any way they liked and we video taped them.

Mahayla created a poster with information about various aspects of the Ancient Greek lifestyle.  She made a discus, drew a wonderful picture of a horse and chariot, set up a book for a visual and dressed in a Greek fashion of the time.  She really took this project seriously and made a great presentation.  )  (Sorry for the dark pictures.  I keep saying we need a new camera and I really mean it!)

Caleb also created a poster, but his was mostly pictures he (we) found on the internet that he labeled.  He made a clay model of the Geat Wall of China, dressed in a robe and served us hot tea.  I thought it was excellent for his first-ever presentation like this.

I really liked doing an end of the unit project and I think the kids did, too.  I think we’ll make these part of each unit this year.  Here are a few pictures of the notebooks we worked on throughout the unit.

Next stop:  Space!

These notebooks have worked so well!  When we go on nature walks, I can look through the sections to see what topic we might need to focus on.  If the kiddos want to go on their own nature walk, they can easily find an appropriate page.  Many of the notebooking pages have lines on them for neat handwriting.  Some of them have no lines, in case we just want to draw.  Some of them have places for scientific names to be added at home.  Some are even like checklists.  We have a variety of pages available to fit the variety of notebooking moods we have!

Here are samples of some of the pages in our notebooks.  I don’t remember where I found many of them, but here are a few great resources:  Considering God’s Creation (awesome checklist-type pages), Notebooking Nook (they have freebies),  NotebookingPages.com (they have freebies, too), this Yahoo group has free pages, and Jennie Fulbright has notebooking pages that go along with her science curriculum books – some of which will work in nature notebooks.

The categories I included are plants, insects, birds, animals, rocks, weather/sky, other.

I even included some ideas to get them going on their own.  I try to copy these sorts of things as I come across them, so I don’t remember where any of them came from.  A few of the ideas include:

*Tweezer Trek – collect only things in a baggie that can picked up with a tweezer, then notebook about the experience.

*Puddle Walk  – after a rain, notebook about something you find in a puddle

*Measure Me Walk  – give them a scavenger hunt list of things to collect that measure various lengths, then notebook about the experience

*Texture Walk – give them a scavenger hunt list to find certain textures, then notebook about the findings

*Shape Walk – give them a scavenger hunt list to find certain shapes, then notebook about the findings

LAPBOOKING – places to buy lapbooking units and learn more about lapbooking:

www.handsofachild.com and www.knowledgeboxcentral.com

NOTEBOOKING – places to learn more about notebooking and find free notebook pages:

www.notebooking.org and www.cindyrushton.com

Don’t forget to sign up at Homeschool E-Store for a FREE weekly download!!  That’s where I’ve gotten tons of wonderful resources for lapbooking units, notebook pages, unit studies and more.  I think you even get a $5.00 gift certificate just for signing up.  I have a quick link to their site on the right.  ——–>