We have been homeschooling for thirteen years, and many years ago I heard Tammy Duby of Tobin's Lab talk about notebooking. The idea was intriguing, so I went out and bought notebooks & composition books for my oldest boys so we could give it a try. My now 20-year-old loved filling his US History notebook with items he researched, places we visited, and from his experiences as a costumed interpreter with Colonial WIlliamsburg. He has that history notebook to this day, and still apreciates the hard work that went into it and the photographs he filled it with of our many historical trips.

My now 14 yo was intimidated by having to fill up a three-ring binder, so I used composition notebooks with him and put in pages with some fun writing exercises to start him out slowly. Later, as he gained enthusiasm, he started writing and illustrating pages on his own, and eventually his creative writing notebook was filled to bursting. He loved showing it to visitors and relatives, explaining what we'd done in school recently. They all thoroughly enjoyed his enthusiasm! We also added the idea of using a children's primary composition book (with the open space for drawing) as a nature notebook, and chronicled our experiences raising chickens and tadpoles...we still like looking at those pictures and reliving the fun memories.

Now my 2, 4, 6, and 8 year olds love finding bugs and birds to draw and write about in their composition notebooks. We've started printing up notebooking pages to take to our visits to the local Living Museum. It is easier to carry a few printed pages that four heavy notebooks...We plan to expand into three-ring binder notebooks this summer, and will be using our notebooks as we work through TruthQuest History this net school year. We can't wait!!!