I notice a lot of curriculum claims to be CM and seem to base that claim on the fact that it includes notebooking in some form. It leaves me wondering if notebooking is a CM thing to do? Did she have her students make up their own notebooks on certain subjects? I know her students did a nature book, but I am thinking of subjects besides that.
Is notebooking a CM thing, or not?
(12 posts) (5 voices)-
Posted 1 year ago # Report Post
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I think she had some notebooks - although whether it is the same as "notebooking" is now, I'm not sure....
Things that come to mind...
Nature Notebook
Copywork Book (younger) / Book of Mottos (older)
Book of Centuries
I'm sure there are more but I can't think at the moment.....
Posted 1 year ago # Report Post -
Bookworm
MemberSuzukimom is correct--Charlotte's students did nature notebooks, copywork/motto books, and the book of centuries. The "notebooking" thing in the homeschool community is not necessarily CM inspired, although you can find ways to make use of those methods. IMO neither notebooking nor lapbooking is necessarily CM. But both are popular with those who like living books, gentle methods so some CM educators make use of these techniques. I've done both to an extent and like methods that are different ways of getting narrations, but I myself don't really like busywork-type pages/minibooks. I do have one happy cutter-paster, though, so sometimes he does some of this stuff on his own. Also one thing that I grew impatient with is that so much of notebooking is really just pages with borders or pictures on it. Why on earth a narration on a "plain" page isn't "notebooking" but a narration on a "decorated" page is, is really just someone trying to sell you fancy paper. LOL
Posted 1 year ago # Report Post -
Yes I guess I mean notebooking of the busywork variety. My kids have hated that when we've tried to implement it in the past. Ok, I was just curious if I was missing something. :)
Posted 1 year ago # Report Post -
Yeah, I wouldn't do busy work type of notebooking - just the narration sort....
Posted 1 year ago # Report Post -
I have to admit that my girls like the decorated pages and I think that if it makes us feel good I have no problems. =) I tried the spiral bound lined paper, and we all lose enthusiam after a while. I do not particularly enjoy all the lapbook things, they do seem to me to be busy work, but with 4 crafty little girls, occasionally I will do them so they have a change of pace. When I do lapbooks, I glue them onto cardstock and put it into their binders so that I am not chasing around a bunch of file folders. I use the lap books mostly with my pre-schoolers with the Before 5 in a Row books.
For my older girls, I use notebook pages a lot for written and drawn narrations because they fit in a three ring binder and I can choose either primary lined or regular lined paper, and still let them enjoy the papers. I use them for our science, history, copywork, dictation, anything that we are doing. I can keep them in one or two binders seperated with dividers. I have to admit that I prefer the basic pages to the fancy ones.
I was printing a paper for them to do copywork, narrations etc on anyway (dd has a bit of a struggle with too much in front of her eyes, it overwhelms her and distracts her). Then I found some free notebooking pages that had four stanza lines with a little design in between them. It breaks up the page nicely, she loves the little design (we can choose what we want) and she has the pride of ownership that the cheap lined paper they use in PS doesn't give. She is very careful b/c she doesn't want to "mess" it up. =) Reinforces the habit of attention and detail.
Whether or not it is strictly CM, it works for us.
Posted 1 year ago # Report Post -
I am glad you posted another perspective sheraz! I am not stictly CM either, and I didn't mean for this to sound like if notebooking is not CM, then I won't do it...
I think part of the reason notebooking fell flat at my house is b/c I have boys who are not crafty for the most part. But some of my littles who are getting older are girls and they're very crafty. So your experience makes me think I may want to offer it to them as an option.
I suppose the reason I asked is b/c in curriculum shopping this year I am noticing over and over people saying their stuff is CM because it has the notebooking/lapbooking component... and I wondered about it.
For example the book Considering God's Creation -- my boys learned a lot, but found all the paper/coloring/cutting/pasting etc to be very tedious. They got to the point that they dreaded it b/c of that aspect of the curriculum.
They're boys. They would rather climb trees.
Posted 1 year ago # Report Post -
We don't do lapbooking - but I don't have problems with fancier pages for drawn/written narrations ie notebooking
Posted 1 year ago # Report Post -
Sometimes I'd rather climb the trees, too. =) Just goes goes to show you...my girls like Considering God's Creation. haha
Still, I like Rachel's reminder the other day that CM is a philosophy, a way of life. We can use her methods that we like and can use now, and get others the next go around if needed. I really enjoyed the thread the other day about how we choose to implement CM methods to suit our families. It helped me to put it more into perspective. However I choose to do it, my girls are still learning. =)
I didn't think that you were knocking notebooking, I just thought I'd share my experience.
Posted 1 year ago # Report Post -
my3boys
Member@sheraz....where do you get your fancy notebooking pages??
Posted 1 year ago # Report Post -
My favorite are the ones here:
That site actually lead me to CM and SCM.
There are tons of things - a Book of Centuries with different kinds of pages, nature study pages, tons of history, geography, science, map drill, copywork, etc. Probably one of my reasons I like them is I can always fnd something to use for whatever we are doing. Of course, I pick and choose them too. Posted 1 year ago # Report Post -
my3boys
MemberThanks sheraz....I have been there before but had forgotten about it!
Posted 1 year ago # Report Post
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