The Unlikely Homeschool: 5 Days of Notebooking 101

A few weeks ago, while lounging on the beach...book in hand, I watched as The Hubs helped my children create an intricate waterway in the sand. They carved out trenches and poured bucketful after bucketful of water down their man-made path. Their "river" was complete with tributaries, a flood plain, and a delta.

At the time, my children had no idea that each of these small sand details added up to big learning. They were just five kids enjoying a sunny day at the beach with dad.

5 Days of Notebooking {The Unlikely Homeschool}

On the way home from our adventures in the sun, we began to chat about their "river". We talked of currents and channels and used BIG words like "headwaters" and "eddy."

During lunch that day, we continued our conversation and ended up watching a short youtube video about the ever-changing landscape of a river, its vegetation, and its effect on the wildlife that it supports.

One thing led to another and my older kids grabbed their nature notebooks to begin sketching out THEIR river using the photographs I had snapped earlier that day. A quick Google image search of river "parts" provided inspiration and further details.

An adventurous day at the beach.
A river with all its intricate parts.

Now both indelibly etched into the minds of my kids because of a simple spiral notebook.

My children will revisit those pages in their nature notebooks in the days to come...revisit them often. They will remember THEIR river and smile.

They will recall all those features we discussed at the beach...and in the car...and around the table.
WHY?
Because they were given space and time to catalog it all in a notebook. They were given a chance to rehearse what they had learned in a natural way. They were given a blank page and an invitation to fill it up!

Notebooking 101

Notebooking has become a wonderful extension to our learning over the years...a tool to organize all our thoughts, opinions, and discoveries.

Over the next few days, I will be continuing our discussion on notebooking and how it has come to be such an integral part of our homeschool. I hope you'll join me as we consider...

12 comments:

RoanJuly 21, 2014 at 4:29 AM
Thank you for sharing this series about note booking. I also have 5 children, one of whom is now in college. I still have left at home a 12th grader, a 10th grader, a 5th grader, and a 3rd grader. When my older three were little, we did note booking. I treasure those notebooks! For a variety of reasons, my younger two have NOT done any note booking, and now looking at your blog, I am inspired! I want to do this again in my homeschool. Now to figure out where to begin!
Thanks for the instructions and the inspiration.
AnonymousJuly 21, 2014 at 6:25 AM
Your posts have really inspired me to start this in our homschool. I have some questions about notebooking though. How and where do you store all your notebooks, past and present, for multiple children? Do you have a notebook for every subject you teach? Which subjects are best to have notebooks for? What kind of general notebooks are best to stock up on (lined paper notebooks, grid paper notebooks, blank notebooks, heavy stock paper)? Are their other resources that you use for inspiration on how to help your student set up a notebook (a particular blog or book perhaps) that you personally have found helpful? Thank you so much!
Susan EvansJuly 21, 2014 at 8:19 AM
We have enjoyed notebooking over the years, too! The kids like to press stuff from nature to add to their notebooks, too. We have kept notebooks for science topics, for historical time periods, and for nature in general.
TiciaJuly 25, 2014 at 7:02 AM
You know, I use words like that all the time, and just assume every else does too, so it's always a little surprising to me when I discover that everyone else doesn't use them.
Reviews by KrisJune 27, 2016 at 2:16 PM
At what age do you start note booking. I would love to start it with my 4th grader but would our K-1 grader be able to join in as well?
Janet C.August 7, 2021 at 11:49 AM
Hello Jamie, First of all, thank you for your blog. It is a blessing! The links at the bottom of this page related to notebooking seem to be broken- they all point me to a general "Make your own blog" website instead of giving any information about Notebooking. When you get a chance, can you take a look and see if the links can be repaired? I am interested in reading more about Notebooking. Thank you!
Confessions of a Fledgling HomemakerSeptember 1, 2021 at 1:06 PM
I am also interested in reading your other posts. I realize the posts are several years old, but if possible would you please upload the content again or redirect us to where we can find it?