We were chatting at my TOG yahoo group today about how we have our dc notebook their TOG papers.  We have a three step technique that works well for us.

The first step is for weekly use.  I purchased clipboards in the dc's favorite colors at the office supply store.  At a glance,  we can tell who's is who's.  On the top for easy and frequent reference throughout the day is their weekly assignment sheet that they can check off as they go.

Behind their weekly schedules, they keep their TOG discussion questions for the week and map of the week for handy reference and ease of use.

The second step is the collection of a year's worth of work.  At the end of the week these go into their TOG notebooks.  I bought each of them cool notebooks with little pockets.  They can insert little pictures of their studies as they like.  Here is dd's.

The old schedules go in the front.

They have a section for their discussion questions.

There is a section for their maps.

There is a section for their writing assignments on TOG topics.

The third step is binding everything into a portfolio at the end of the year.  The dc take everything out of their notebooks and group everything according to date/culture studied. They also take all the flat stuff from the past unit celebrations to add to the portfolio. Those go into a decorated 3 ring notebook.  Here is dd's from Year 1, the study of Creation to the Fall of Rome.

We covered a plain notebook in burlap.  The jagged brown squares say "Year of Redemption".  They stamped with gold ink onto dark brown cardstock, cut out with fancy scissors and glued on.  The gold thing was a project from their study of Ancient Egypt.  (We can't remember what it's called!)  It was made of clay and engraved with their name in hieroglyphics, then painted.  Then they used raffia to decorate as they wished.  We covered the inside covers with black cardstock.  Here is ds'.

I printed out on cardstock all the wonderful comments family members sent when I e-mailed pictures and descriptions of our unit celebrations.   These are on the yellow cardstock.  At the final celebration last year, the grandmas each gave the children notecards with a lovely note and money!  The notecards are pasted in the inside cover.  (The money has been spent!)

Then the dc took cardstock to decorate dividers for each culture/time period studied.  DD liked to research the types of food each of the ancient cultures ate.  Those menus were pasted on the fronts of her cardstock.  Then she designed borders using designs known to that culture.  She also tried to use colors known for the cultures.  Here's one for Mesopotamia.

Here's her Mayan menu.

Inside the dividers the dc put all their work from that culture, including maps, questions, papers, and art projects.  Many items seen in the unit celebration can be seen here.  This summer I hope to make copies of photos of the unit celebrations for them to add to these sections.  Here's a paragraph that dd wrote and turned into a pop up on Egypt.

Here's her Creation book.

Here's her Phoenician dye project.

Here's her string art using Greek mathematics.

Here's her tortoise mask from her play, "The Tortoise and the Hare."

DS did original artwork for his dividers.  Here are the Inuits.

The Phoenicians...

For the Persians he designed a rug.

Here is part of his Egyptian costume that went inside the dividers.

Here are some of his overlay maps.

Here is one of his early paragraphs on how the Mesopotamians observed comets.  He designed this little book to display his little paragraph.  (Since we were beginning to learn to write well with IEW, we started with simple paragraphs.  Those were easy to display as pop ups.  We haven't done pop ups in a long time, because now their papers are much longer.)

When you open it, you see a pop up of a comet, which moves (he designed this himself)....

Watch the comet move...

That comet zooms across the sky!

That's our 3 step process of storing a years worth of TOG!  I am sure it will look different by the time the dc start rhetoric!  LOL