Notebooking Tutorials Menu:
I found out about notebooking the way so many other homeschooling parents do. I went searching for a better way to homeschool. It seems like a constant search, doesn’t it? Every year, we get a little more experienced, a little wiser, a little more organized, and a LOT less willing to spend more and more on the latest, greatest homeschooling ideas and curricula! Am I right? I am so thankful I found out about notebooking and so are my children! It has not only saved us money, but has also breathed new life into our homeschooling studies.
Through the struggle of trying to find a better way to homeschool, I found, little by little, I needed to let go of what I thought “home” & “schooling” should look like. I needed to let go of what everyone else, even some of the experts, thought “homeschooling” should look like. Instead, I needed to let God equip me to meet the very special and unique needs of my family in a way that fits MY family’s learning styles and fits MY family’s schedule.
And so began our journey with notebooking!
Our very first experiences with notebooking were recorded in composition journals. My two older girls humored me with our attempts to record some writing exercises and some pictures for science. I did not realize that this was “notebooking” at the time. It was just something we tried along with the rest of the homeschooling ideas I was trying at the time. Not too long after that, I became acquainted with Cindy Rushton’s website and ministries. Cindy Rushton is known as the “Notebooking Queen” or “Binder Queen” and rightfully so! She has been very successful at informing and educating moms not only about notebooking, but also about Christian living, motherhood, homeschooling, home businesses and more!
After this introduction to notebooking, we began to dabble a bit more, but not with a concentrated effort. We tried making the wonderful “homemade” style (or scrapbooky) looking notebooking pages and purchased some special papers and scissors. It really was a fun and effective activity for the kids. The only problem was that instead of allowing notebooking to replace some of our other “busy” activities, like workbooks, I just ADDED it to our already full list. So notebooking kept getting put aside in order for us to finish our other subjects first. Then, I purchased an e-book from Cindy with more information about creating homemade books and found the most wonderful thing – notebooking templates! These were perfect for my busy family. We had just blended seven children together by adopting our two nieces and nephew, and so things were a little chaotic in our homeschool. With these templates though, I could quickly print out several of each page and then the kids could simply pick which ones they wanted and within minutes we were notebooking. No major preparation or planning needed! Words a homeschooling mom loves to hear!
After finding our niche with these notebooking templates, notebooking became a more regular part of our day. Soon we were notebooking Bible, history, science, copywork, and anything else the kids found interesting.
During this time, I was learning to let go of some of those preconceived ideas about what homeschooling is supposed to look like that I mentioned above. I began to let go of the workbooks, worksheets, and quizzes, tests and even (gasp) our textbooks! I replaced these more traditional resources with more time for reading great living books and notebooking. What an improvement! We found notebooking, along with a few other new ideas (living books, narration, and shorter lessons) to be much more effective in our homeschooling and incredibly more enjoyable. For more information on living books, narrations, and shorter lessons, research “Charlotte Mason homeschooling”.
Freeing up more time in our homeschool day created more time for the “homemade” notebooking pages. These types of notebooking pages are so much fun! In addition to all of the scrapbooking type things you can do, we also began adding lapbooking elements to our notebooking pages. I have dabbled with lapbooks, but I find it too time consuming for me and my bunch. I end up doing most of the work myself. With notebooking though, you can get the best of both worlds! It is easy to add a lapbook (or “3D“) element to your page anytime. (Click here to find free cutouts and lapbooking elements you can add to your notebooking pages.)
Some of the Basic Lined Notebooking Pages
As our notebooking activities increased, so did the desire for more variety in our notebooking templates. So I got to work creating a variety of templates. This helped to make everyone’s pages more individualized as well. After creating about 100 different notebooking templates, no one ever felt like they were doing the same page twice. As I realized how much easier notebooking was for us to implement with these notebooking templates, I began to share our pages with others online with the hopes that they too would catch on to this wonderful tool! So, this was the beginning of NotebookingPages.com!
This first set of pages I created for my family are available in our Notebooking Pages Shop – they are called the Basic Lined Notebooking Pages. This e-set contains 200 pages of primary and regular-lined notebooking pages. There are 100 different layouts available in each type of lined format. The set also includes 25 bonus color border pages! We use them for copywork, narrations, writing assignments, reports, science labs, journaling, etc. and for a variety of subjects and interests . . . Bible, history, science, literature, map studies, hobbies, … pretty much anything and everything!
Our Notebooking Story on Video — Introducing the Notebooking Pages Treasury |
