I just started homeschooling my 5-year old son for kindergarten this year. I’m new to homeschooling, and we are going through a charter school – so we are given a curriculum and assignments. But I have been frustrated with the curriculum and textbooks, and my son has been less than enthusiastic with the number of worksheets and “busy-work” and I was beginning to feel like I was killing his natural love for learning. Here I had this incredible child who is already reading on a 5th grade level, doing end-of-1st grade math, and yet he was starting to hate “school.” I felt like I was failing. I started researching online for other homeschooling ideas, and came across the whole notion of notebooking, and it immediately appealed to me. It seemed so much more flexible than the curriculum we were assigned now, and it seemed like my son would be actually learning more than when he’s just filling in blanks or drawing lines from pictures to words on worksheets.

My first trial was with one of the science notebooking pages. I printed the one with space for 3 pictures and then primary-lined writing area. We did a science experiment, and rather than just DO it, like we normally would have, after the experiment, I had my son draw pictures of the stages of the experiment and asked him to write a sentence about what he learned – and he LOVED doing it!!! It made the whole experience SO MUCH more of a learning experience, and even though it’s been a couple weeks, he’s STILL talking about it! Even though he generally dislikes writing, he truly enjoyed that experience, and I hope to have many more like it!! Thank you for opening a whole new world to us!!