Perhaps you’ve heard of notebooking or maybe this term is new to you. I thought I would share how we use notebooking in our homeschooling to give you a better sense of what it’s like and whether or not it may be a good fit for you.
Notebooking for us:
With so many kids, many different learning styles and some special needs thrown into the mix, it’s hard to find a homeschool curriculum or tool that works for everyone. It makes my life so much easier when I do! Notebooking is one of the few things that I’ve found that I can use with all of the kids at the same time.
Writing comes quite naturally for some of my kids, but one in particular struggles with all types of writing. One of our sons who has Aspergers and dysgraphia finds any type of writing akin to torture. For him, notebooking is good writing practise without being too much pressure. It’s actually the only form of writing we can get him to complete without tears.
Our oldest daughter on the other hand is always asking me if I can print her out more notebooking pages to work on! She can’t seem to get enough of writing.
I find that notebooking is much different than busywork or workbooks. Notebooking encourages reading, exploring, and pursuing areas of interest. My kids care about the finished products and are proud of them. They show them off to their dad or grandparents and they want to keep them.
Students are engaged while they are learning. Therefore, they are able to better retain the information.
Using Notebooking Pages:
There are so many ways to use Notebooking in your homeschooling. The possibilities really are endless. Any subject, any age, any ability level can fit with this type of learning. We have used it with Bible, Science, History, Nature Study, Countries, Holidays, Biographies, and more.
Recently, we began growing sunflowers on our deck. Naturally, the kids wanted to study them and learn more about them. Because of my membership with Notebooking Pages, I was able to quickly print off some pages for them specific to sunflowers from the Wildflowers, Weeds and Garden Flowers Nature Study and they sat outside to learn and record their discoveries on paper.
The kids all really enjoyed the tree notebooking pages, especially these ones where they were able to do a rubbing of the bark of the tree. This pack also included pages where they did rubbings of the leaves of the tree as well. It is a perfect pack for Spring or Fall.
One of the unique aspects of Notebooking Pages is their Publisher Web App which allows you to create your own notebooking or copywork pages. If your child were interested in studying something that they did not have pages for, you could simply create your own using graphics they supply or upload your own graphics.
I have used this app to create simple meal planning menus for myself and to create copywork for the kids for quotes or poems that they are working on memorizing.
Notebooking Pages at Productive Homeschooling:
While I have piece mealed things together here and there from different sources, my favourite is Productive Homeschooling. There are so many products to choose from! If you’re not sure if your kids would enjoy Notebooking, try the Free Homeschool Resource Hub. There are many Free notebooking pages available to try. That will give you a better idea if this method would work well for your child.
Join the LIFETIME Notebooking Pages Treasury Memberships and get access to thousands of notebooking pages . . . all of their products and all new updates indefinitely!
It is also possible to purchase individual packs to correspond to an area of interest or current study.
And of course by using the Web App, you are also able to customize both notebooking and copywork pages. The only limit to what can be created is your imagination!
We are going to be newbie homeschoolers this year and I cannot tell you how excited I am looking at this “notebooking” thing! My homeschooling friend showed me how her kids do their own journals on what they are learning, which was awesome, but I was somewhat overwhelmed at how to implement that myself. I certainly could use the help in having printable pages! Thanks for the info! (Day 2 as a subscriber, I am loving your site!)
Thanks Jennifer…the printable pages are so helpful to have!
I can’t wait to include this into my school year.
I am a new subscriber.
Have a wonderful day.
Thanks Amy and welcome!
These notebooking pages look like so much fun. I’ve been wanting to try some for our homeschool and this would be super helpful.
Keeping as records for that subject and looking back at them.
We love note/lap booking. My youngest does notebooking for everything (she even designed notebooking pages for her stuffed animals lol). We use the freebies from NP all the time but a membership would be AWESOME!!!
I love that notebooking is something that my 6 year old daughter, my 10 year old son, and I can all work on together, at our own levels.
Hi – I’m just learning about notebooking and loving it – but I am confused – why is this giveaway limited to the USA and excludes everyone else – is this not for a web based prize? anyway, it’s a great blog post, very helpful
Unfortunately, giveaways in the US are considered sweepstakes and have to comply with those laws. Notebooking Pages is a US based company. I am actually Canadian so I’m not eligible to enter in many of the giveaways out there either and I wish I could make it available for everyone. I will be having a different giveaway soon that will be open to everyone (since that is a prize supplied by me and I’m not in the US, I can offer it that way) so please check back for that.
Notebooking really lets my kids show their creativity (and what they are learning!)
We love Notebooking!
This is our first year homeschooling. We took time off the first part of the “public school year” to deschool the girls and we have been working slowly at it. I haven’t used notebooking with the girls just yet but have been looking into it, to use with science lessons . I am still getting organized . LOL. But so far we are doing terrific and the girls are so much happier , healthier and learning way more than ever.
Glad to hear that your girls are doing so well with homeschooling! Don’t feel badly about the organization thing…I’ve been homeschooling for 12 or 13 years and I’m still trying to get organized!
We are looking forward to learning more about utilizing notebooking in our daily homeschool lessons. It seems like a lot of fun and something my girls would definitely be interested in partaking in. We are getting into learning about about human anatomy and with both of the girls (ages 8 and 9) and I have been looking for notebooking resources to help us with our studies. Glad I found your blog.
We have been debating the whole notebooking page way of doing things. Thank you so much for the info
If I win, I am looking forward to filling my three boys’ summer with tons of learning fun!
I love notebooking pages, they are a great hands on type way of learning for my 13yr old daughter who has special needs
I love notebooking with nature studies. It would be great to expand it to our other areas of study.
I have always wanted to do more nature notebooking with my kids. Thanks!!
I would like using notebooking pages because my daughter loves to draw and do art and it will help develop her writing skills too 🙂 along with learning about the subject at hand
We are new to notebooking but I’m looking forward to all the benefits that it provides!
I’ve never tried notebooking with my boys (8 & 5) before, but I’m curious to see if they would like it. They both dislike any form of writing.
This will be our first year of homeschooling and notebooking seems like a great fit for our family, I love to see the progression of their work from the beginning of the year to the end. Thanks for a great giveaway.
Would love to win so that I may learn how to notebook. What a great blessing
I have never seen this style of schooling before, but we are very interested. New subscriber to you!
We have been transitioning over to notebooking and my kids love it. This would be a great tool to help us finish the move over to this style.
My boys especially enjoy notebooking science, art and music.
We have only done one page so far. She seems to have liked it, but she does NOT like to write! Hopefully that will improve as we try more notebooking!
It looks like such an awesome homeschooling tool!
I am most looking forward to having a way to catalog all our interests without being overwhelmed with stacks of papers! Having everything contained and organized by topic is so appealing to me!
I am most looking forward to my 5 year old daughter’s improved handwriting.
We are completely new to homeschooling. We made the decision when we figured out our son needs more one on one time than a classroom setting. There has been some great progress. I’m new to notebooking as well and would love to get a chance to try it and apply it to our learning. Seems like something my son would like.
I’m so glad to hear that you’ve had progress with your son since homeschooling.
Now this looks like something we could use!
I am getting really excited about starting notebooking with my 3 boys next year. Science and history got a little boring and uninteresting this year, so I’m sure this will work great for my crew. Especially the 8 yr old who loves to draw.