N is for Notebooks (ABC Blogging)

This post may be a little rambling in nature, but when I got to thinking about notebooks one thought led to another and so I'm just going to follow them.

I have been reading through The Living Page: Keeping Notebooks with Charlotte Mason by Laurie Bestvater and in the second chapter she goes through the various kinds of notebooks that are referenced in Charlotte Mason's writings. Mason is probably best know for her advocating of nature notebooks, copybooks, and a Book of Centuries, but this chapter listed a few others that really inspired me to try my hand at. Here are a few:

"My Word Book" - In this book a parent records words that a child has learned to read and can recognize. Delani will be learning to read this coming school year and I really think she will like doing this.

"A Commonplace Book" - This term I was familiar with and it was used for student to write down any passage that came from any reading from any subject. I want to implement this with just the books I read. I do keep an online list of books I read, but I feel inspired to actually jot down the book information, passages I like, and a short summary of the book for reference. I would love to blog about every book I read, but that is never going to happen!

"A Household Book" - This notebook was for keeping "instruction type" written narrations for household duties, though it could be applied to anything a student was interested in. One thing I need to focus on this year is getting my kids more involved in cooking in the kitchen and washing clothes. I can see this type of notebook being very beneficial and could easily be done on paper or digitally.

And speaking of notebooks you may be asking, "Do you do notebooking in your homeschool?". And my answer is, "If it can be done in a composition notebook, yes, and if it requires special notebooking pages, no." I love the thought of using notebooking pages, but I have come to realize that it just won't happen. I love composition books and my kids love composition books. We use them for everything--notebooking, journals, recording written narrations, spelling, English, and more.

Last but not lease--I just had to share this. I love to decorate composition books and years ago I found some mini-composition books and made a few up for my mom. She absolutely loves them and uses them all the time. When she starts to run out she calls me asking me to make more. They also make great little gifts.  So there you have it--my rambling post on notebooks! Thanks for reading.