Imagine a homeschool day where your children beg you to let them start doing their schoolwork as soon as they wake up. Imagine your children happily chatting away as they diligently tackle the day’s assignment with nary a complaint or protest to be heard.
…Now imagine that assignment is a writing assignment.
Does this seem like an impossible scenario? Last year at this time I would’ve agreed with you, but guess what?
That’s been the atmosphere in our homeschool for the past month.
(Disclaimer- I received a free copy of Notebooking Success and was compensated for writing this post. All opinions are entirely my own.)
As a writer, being the mom of a slew of kids that seem to hate anything involving the writing process has always left me feeling baffled, and, to be honest, a little hurt.
How can anyone hate writing?!
After years of trying several approaches to help my kids get in the groove of writing, I finally came across the idea of notebooking, a homeschool tool I like to describe as a cross between journaling and scrapbooking. Almost immediately, my kids seemed not to mind writing as much, and there was certainly less whining… But I knew that in order for this to work as well as I believed it could, I had to educate myself more fully on how to properly implement it.
Enter Notebooking Success, by Jimmie Lanley, author of notebookingfairy.com and jimmiescollage.com.
I am not exaggerating when I say that this ebook revolutionized our homeschool.
Here’s what you’ll find in this one-of-a-kind resource:
Before I even begin, I want to point out that I’m a busy mom– like 11 kids busy- and I need any resources I use to be short, thorough, and to the point.
Notebooking Success easily fulfills those requirements, and then some.
To be honest, I’m not even sure how Jimmie Lanley managed to pack as much information into 33 pages as she did.
Is she a magician??
All joking aside, this manual covers just about everything you can think of.
The book starts out giving a detailed explanation of what notebooking is and what kinds of notebooks there are. After sharing this vital information for notebooking novices, the topic of why you should consider notebooking is covered.
Other topics included are:
- What are reasonable expectations for different age groups
- How to avoid overdoing it
- How notebooking fits in with different homeschool approaches
- Ideas for what to include in notebooks
Even if that were all that was included, this book would still be worth reading, but that’s not all!
Upon the purchase of this ebook, customers also receive bonus printables!
- 50 Things to Put in a Notebook
- Resource pages for grades 1-3, 4-6, and 7-12
- General notebooking pages
- A set of basic notebooking pages from notebookingpages.com
Now that’s a bargain!
Why I loved this book:
I may be a relaxed homeschool mom, but I am about as type-A as they come. I feel so much better when I have resources I can refer back to again and again.
This is perfect for me.
As for my kids…
You should see the difference in them. Notebooking Success has given me the confidence and know-how I desperately needed to give my kids the freedom- within limits- that makes notebooking so effective.
Not so long ago, I had a bunch of kids who would moan and groan at any mention of a writing assignment.
Now I have children who excitedly ask me,“What are we notebooking today??” in complete anticipation.
Now I have children who actually ask me if they can work in their notebooks when we aren’t doing school.
And now I have children who enthusiastically share with others their newfound love for writing.
I am 100% convinced that the only way we got to this place in our homeschool is through the guidance and wisdom I found in Notebooking Success
It’s turned our homeschool from a place of stress to a place of enthusiasm. Looking back on it, I’m pretty convinced she is a magician.
Because her book has transformed my kids’ education in ways I never thought possible.
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I used similar notebook methods as a classroom teacher for Language Arts and found it extremely effective! My kids aren’t old enough for them yet but this looks like a great program to implement.
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My kids just love it. Today I gave them a snow day, and they still spent a good hour sitting at the table, notebooking. 🙂
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Nice to know! My daughter is six and just getting to the point where she can write legibly and doesn’t find coloring frustrating. We’re thinking of doing more notebooking soon. It’s a great way to keep everything together and give kids the feeling that they’re progressing.
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I’ve even started doing it with my 3 yr old. She loves feeling like one of the big kids!
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We love notebooking at our house. The Notebooking Fairy really helped us to refine how we went about it.
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I wish I would have considered notebooking years ago. It’s just wonderful!
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Ooh, this looks great! I love scrapbooking so it would be neat to use the same kind of ideas to get my daughter writing. She’s still young yet though she has really taken an interest in colouring (scrawling…) with crayons over the last few weeks. She tells me that all her drawings are of Spiderman though!
Thanks so much for sharing over at Friday Frivolity 🙂
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Even my 3 yr old does it. She has a notebook on letters. 🙂
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I bought a membership last year from notebookingpages.com and never got the hang of it. Perhaps we’ll give it another shot this year 😉
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It does take time. The key for us was allowing my kids to choose something to notebook about. While we do notebook for our unit study and history read-aloud, my kids’ favorite notebooks are their animal notebooks. They can choose any animal they want to and become an “expert” on it in their notebook. That is one notebook they have NEVER complained about working in.
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