What is Notebooking?

Notebooking has been used for centuries. It may be in the form of a worn out recipe book, a nature journal, a scrapbook, an artist’s sketch book, a family history or a scientist’s reports. All these are types of notebooks. Put simply it is an educational scrapbook or journal.

Notebooking is a great way to create a record of learning in a creative and meaningful way.

Learning is not limited to the textbook or worksheet but to what has captured the child’s interest or what the child knows. As they create their notebooking pages they learn. As they record their information they discover and make a reference for the future.

Notebooking is a skill and an art. It gives children a sense of accomplishment, with a stamp of originality. Notebooking offers a vehicle for collecting a range of ideas and subjects and melding them into a treasured testimony of their learning journey.

Pure, fresh, clean paper, the crisp strokes of the creator’s pencil–mixed with a splash of inspiration, make notebooking a unique educational keepsake. Notebooking can be as simple as you like, or as grand as you can imagine. No other learning tool has such potential for individuality and versatility. Each page represents the limitless boundaries of a living education unrestricted by a textbook or workbook.

Worksheets and Notebooking – What’s the Difference?

Worksheets follow a question and answer format. They usually require a set framework and they often leave little room for creativity. Notebooking on the other hand allows children to record the things that interest them. Whilst they do give a starting point, and in some cases make suggestions for content, the children still get to decide what is important and what will go on the page or if they need to use the page at all.

Types of Notebooking

Notebooking can be used for many different subjects and approaches. Charlotte Mason used many notebooks in her schools. Here are a few ideas to help you start notebooking.

Lined Notebooks For Narrations

These are great for copywork, a book of commonplace (quotes that strike you or you want to remember) or narration notebooks. This one below was used for poetry copywork lessons. She only recorded the ones she liked.

Finding beautiful notebooks for their work encourages them to take care with their presentation. Try to find stitch bond books as it is very annoying if the paper begins to fall out when you are only half way through the book. These books I am planning on using for their history book narrations. We will chose a spine or main book and they write narrations in their book after they have finished reading. This is much more thoughtful and creative than using worksheets.

Notebooking Folders and Clip Folders

Notebooking pages are placed in the folder.

Using three ringed folders are so much better for keeping your pages nice and neat, trust me! I also like the clear white folders where I can add a cover for the folder. I buy scrapbooking pages, cut them to size and slip them into the clear sleeved cover (see my book of centuries below). You can also place your pages into a clear sleeved protectors. The advantage of this method is your page is protected and you can shuffle, add, subtract and/or move pages about. We use this for our history notebooks and book of centuries.

You can use these types of notebooks when you want to add and subtract from the notebooks. I also use them for my homeschool planner.

Timelines & A Book of Centuries

At My Homeschool we use timeline folders from Year 2 – Year 4 as a part of our history lessons. It is like a giant timeline notebook that records the whole of history.

A Book of Centuries is similar but it is for older children. In this a student records brief facts, narrations, maps and sketches about the events of history as they occurred.

The Prime Minister’s Notebook (used in My Homeschool Year 6) is another example when a folder works well. When you finish a page you can bind them together and store in a portfolio of work done over the year.

Notebooking With Blank Scrapbooks

Notebook entries are made directly on to the pages of the scrapbook. This works best when it doesn’t matter if the entries are random, or you know you won’t want to add things later on. We use blank art books for Nature Journaling and our Bible notebooks. They would also be good for or recording experiments. This method is good because it is compact and easily transportable.

We used notebooks for:

Bible lessons
Composer studies
Science lessons writing up science experiments

Notebooking Nature Journals

Nature journaling is a another form of notebooking. Put simply, it is keeping a journal about nature. It has no rules, so you will always get it right. It is a creative, expressive observation of nature.

Here are nature notebooking examples of from the Charlotte Mason archives Ambleside’s Armitt library. Worth looking at because they are quite simple but informative.

Nature Journaling With Kids Has Many Benefits

Children learn and observe the intricacies of nature
Children learn to express their response to nature through art and writing.
Nature becomes wonderful. It is more than scientific names and processes.

Notebooking Pages Bring Structure To Your Lesson Planning

Sometimes it’s good to get a starting place for your notebook. Children often find it less intimidating than a blank piece of paper. Giving them the topic can act as a springboard for their narrations and for me they add structure to my curriculum planning and required narrations from my children. Children can still be creative. We also found it very helpful to space out their narrations. For example we would require a narration on a particular chapter and give them narration pages that correspond.

History Notebooks are perfect for narrations. Pre formatted notebook pages can also help give you some structure for the types of topics that you may want to cover. In Year 5 we use Australian History Notebooking Pages.

Jimmie at the Notebooking Fairy has a great little ebook called Notebooking Success that I was very useful.