Name: Thrive! NCHE Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-05-22T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-05-24T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Winston-Salem, NC

Tagged: Book of mottoes, Commonplace Book

This topic has 6 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 10 years, 11 months ago by Claire.

Viewing 7 posts - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

Author
Posts
May 25, 2014 at 3:00 am
poodlemama
Participant
How do you start encoraging your kids to keep a commonplace book? We have done copywork, but it’s always been stuff of my choosing, not theirs. I would really like to see my oldest start writing down quotes that SHE finds inspiring. But she reads books so fast that I have trouble even getting her to write down all the titles (and I mean big, fat wordy books). She reads through them so fast that she often misses the little messages in them. She doesn’t notice the though provoking quotes or clever references the authors put into the story– she just loves the story. We are reading the Chronicals of Narnia now as a family and I’m trying to help guide her to notice the references to the bible stories. Any other hints on getting kids to look past the surface of the story? PS my oldest is going into 8th grade.
Thanks,
Lindsey
May 25, 2014 at 3:46 am
missceegee
Participant
A good age for a commonplace book. Two thoughts – model it with your own journal, and add it to her schedule. Commonplace is on dd13’s schedule once a week, but now she’s always adding to it. One day she added a whole lot of quotes she’d just read bc she liked them so much. HTH, Christie
May 25, 2014 at 3:08 pm
Amy
Participant
I added it to my older boys’ schedule. Right now it is daily, to establish a habit. I asked them to do 2 lines a day, they both decided to copy a (different) poem from The Hobbit. I’m thinking that next year I’ll have a ‘sharing’ time, where we can read something we’ve written in our books aloud, rather than putting it in the organizer as an assignment.
May 25, 2014 at 4:27 pm
missceegee
Participant
DD13 has copied all poems and songs from the Hobbit as favorites. 🙂
May 25, 2014 at 4:41 pm
Benita
Participant
I agree. I have added it to the schedule. I require once per week, but my son often adds more on another day.
May 26, 2014 at 12:53 am
Sara B.
Participant
I added it to the daily school schedule, and once in a while I do catch my oldest writing in it on off days. I think adding it to the schedule gets them in the habit of it.
May 26, 2014 at 6:23 pm
Claire
Participant
My daughter writes daily in her commonbook this year. I leave a prompt for her but she’s welcome to ignore it and write what she likes instead. She practices cursive and calligraphy in hers as well … through the things she writes.