From My Corner of the World

Feb. 21, 2006

Notebooking, Finally!

Last week I made another stride in conquering my perfectionism, and moving our home learning forward.  We started notebooking YEAHHH!!!   I have been reading about notebooking, lurking in a notebooking yahoo group for atleast 6 months if not longer.  So what was my hold up? I didn't quite understand how to do it "right".  See, I just knew there was a certain way to do it, and I couldn't get perfectly organized to have all the perfect clipart and pictures and suggestions for narration and copywork.  But since we were learning about the solar system, and that's a subject my boys love and we continually learn more about, it seemed like a logical place to start.    I wish I had a digital camera to add pictures. (Dh and I are trying to convince ourselves it's a worthwhile purchase. We should be there by this summer!)  But these are the things we did, mostly ds1(age 8)     1. A handwriting/copywork assignment were he copied the names of the nine planets.   He cut it out, applied it to cardstock and drew a picture to go with it.     2. We did  a  hanger mobile of the 9 planets and the sun.       3.  We read a book about Galileo (Starry Messenger, by Peter Sis).  I had my son narrate what he learned from the book, I typed it.  We found a clip-art picture of Galileo  (using a Google search), and he cut out the narration and picture and put them on some cardstock paper     4. I found some good clip-art at www.school.discovery.com/clipart/.     5. For a final touch we are going to add some scripture about when God created the solar system, etc.  I will have him copy a couple of sentences for copywork practice, and I may type a few and he can arrange them on cardstock with some clip art.     6.  Also we used some pages from this site: .highschoolscience.com/books/elem/astronomy_notebook_pages_upper_and_primary.pdf, specifically the blank ones about comets, meteorites and asteroids.    After going through the Dk book "Space Revealed" ds1 son narrated what he learned about comets, asteriods and meteorites and drew pictures which we applied to these blank pages.   For actual texts, I use Considering God's Creation as kind of a base.  I used it for the introduction to our study, then I just went to the library and found some good books.    What was an extra bonus (other than watching my son create his pages ) was I shared it with my dh and he was really impressed.  He said "things like this make me feel better (i.e. more confident) in this homeshcooling".  I think he really needs to see something to show what we've been doing and what the boys are learning.    Now we're working on Early American History (using TruthQuest American History for Young Students I) and we'll be creating pages for this also.

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Apr. 10, 2006 - Notebooking

Posted by homexfour

Can you suggest a good book on Notebooking? I love the idea. Have read some on Marilyn Howshall Lifestyle of Learning. I also keep thinking I am not doing this right. I have seen some awesome notebooks at conferences with sketches of nature and the scientific names included. Want to get there. My kids love being free to learn more of what they want to learn. With lots of guided help from ME Thanks, Renee Mom to Brandon, Jessica, Alyssa and Mikayla

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