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Little One has wrapped up the alphabet. And in celebration of her success, I made a notebook of her letter papers that she has done through the year.
For my birthday, I asked for a binding machine, and I’ve already had such a blast using it! In addition to this notebook for my daughter, I also made a sermon notebook for my son and re-bound one of his books that had come apart. Of course, I have many more projects in mind for this new toy as well, so stay tuned.
Most of her book are the coloring pages and dot pages that we have worked on from Erica’s Letter of the Week material, with a few other pages and projects sprinkled in among them. At the back, I’ve added a few of her number pages that she has worked on, and at the front I included her end of the year assessments (again from Erica’s blog).
My official K4-er
And, in honor of my daughter’s absolute favorite book and a core resource for this year, I made a copy of the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom cover and pasted her name down at the bottom as the author.
So this officially marks the end of her preschool year. Next stop: K4!
(And just so you get a complete picture of our new school arrangement, the baby was crying his head off the entire time I was putting this book together, with big sister trying her best to keep the pacifier stuffed in his mouth.)
I mentioned in a previous post how much I have enjoyed notebooking with my littles. It has been a great fit for what I know I’m capable of tackling and for my kids’ creativity, not to mention a terrific record of what we’ve done this year in geography/science.
Really though, this year was just a taste. Next year, we really plunge into the depths of notebooking and all of its capabilities. Because of the timing of baby #3’s arrival, I have most of next year planned (as far as resources and curriculum go), so I know just how much notebooking I intend to do—history, Bible, science, handwriting, art/music
And, to make sure I had the budget and the resources for my major project, I’ve done some searching. Here are some resources that I’ll be using:
Notebooking Fairy is a website I just recently discovered and absolutely love. Not only does she have a number of free printable pages, but she also has an ebook on notebooking with some really terrific instruction for first-time notebookers and those who might just need a little inspiration. She covers how to use notebooking at the different grade levels, what to include for each grade level, and a number of notebooking pages to get you started. I was greatly encouraged by her info and eager to do more. She also periodically posts links to other notebooking resources, like her February Round-up post.
Notebooking Pages is another website with a wealth of notebooking pages, some for free and some for purchase. The yearly membership is way out of budget, but a couple of the notebooking packs that she sells looked perfect for us: one for nature study, which we’ll probably use for this summer; and one for anatomy, which we’ll pick up for the fall.
I also stumbled upon some really cute subject dividers from Disney’s Family Fun website, of all places—and they’re free!
Most of my notebooking pages are included in the Tapestry of Grace curriculum, but I did notice in my search that there are a number of yahoo groups that include files of notebooking pages others have created for Tapestry of Grace and Apologia, and I’m sure there are others.
That’s what I’ve found in my brief search. I also found a number of resources for nutrition, but I’ll cover those in another post. In the meantime, feel free to comment with your favorite places to find notebooking resources. I’d love to check them out!
*This post does contain an affiliate link to the ebook Notebooking Success and Tapestry of Grace.
One of the things I have loved about this year is the notebooking we’ve done for our geography study. At the beginning of the year, I wasn’t sure how well it would go, since most blogs and sites recommend lapbooking for littles and notebooking for older kids. After all, both of mine could barely write. But I made the decision based on two facts.
1. I know myself. We did some lapbooking last year for K4, and though we all enjoyed it, it was a lot of work and a lot of planning. In the long run, I knew lapbooking our studies would be something that I would never get to (kind of like scrapbooking). The lapbooks are so cool! And we may still do a couple every now and then, but for a regular activity I didn’t think I had the stick-to-it-tiveness.
2. We made about 5 lapbooks last year, and I also put many of their worksheet pages in a notebook for them to show off and enjoy. Can you guess which of those gets the most traffic? Ironically, it’s their notebooks. It’s only every now and then that I see them pull out the lapbooks. Believe me, if I’m going to put the time in, I want it to pay off long-term with lots of use.
So notebooking was my choice for this year, and here’s what I did to make that choice successful for my young kindergartener and preschooler.
1. I printed off a number of pages before the school year: all of our animal study pages and “Children Just Like Me” pages. Then, I filed them in the back of my notebook. The geography pages I print off at the beginning of each 6 weeks—all of them. These pages I keep filed in their notebooks. Then, on the assigned day, I simply have them pull their notebooks out and turn to the correct page. The advanced prep has kept me from procrastinating and made the process pretty seamless.
Notebooking NigeriaNotebooking China's flag
2. Our notebooking is a combination of coloring and narration. Most of the blanks on the pages I fill in what they have told me. For instance, on our country notebooking page I typically fill in 3 blanks: the continent, the capital city, and the population. They tell me the continent, and I write it in. I tell them the capital and write it in; then, I show them a picture and have them tell me where to place the star (for the capital city) on their picture of the country. Last, I tell them the population and write it in (my son is very impressed with populations and large numbers), and they color the country. On the page for the country flag, I read the facts and guide them as they color the flag the same as the sticker inside their passport. For our “Children Just Like Me” page, my son writes the child’s name, age, country, and city (copying from our book); then the rest of the page is narration. Both kids recounts to me facts about the child’s family, favorite food, religion, hobbies, etc., and I write in what they remember.
Notebooking Flag of South Africa
Notebooking Children Just Like Me
There are two other elements to our notebook this year. On the second week of our study, we include a study of the country’s animals as part of our “Fun Friday” activities. We make a flip-book using the templates from Expedition Earth. I cut envelopes in half for pockets, glue them to blank sheets of paper, slide the flip-books in place, and insert the pages into their notebooks.
Arranging flip-book, largest to smallest
We’ve also classified animals this year: mammals, reptiles, birds, fish, amphibians, and arthropods. I pre-cut the pictures of the animals from our country (provided by Expedition Earth) because the lines are so tight that it makes cutting difficult for the kids. They tell me the classification, and I help them glue those animals in their proper divisions within the notebook.
Notebooking animals by classification
The result? They love their notebooks! I love the simplicity! And we have a record of what we’ve covered as well as a place to practice skills like copywork and narration, coloring, organizing, and sorting.
