How to Organize a Notebooking Station

Notebooking is the practice of journaling while you learn using
pictures and  words.

 It is fancy journalling.

This is an easy and engaging way to teach
any subject and works extremely well in the homeschool environment.
Beautiful templates, coloring tools, and a learning environment
provide learners with everything they need to notebook successfully.

There are two reasons children thrive in a notebooking learning
environment

1. The have ownership of their work. They are designing and
   scripting their own learning.

2. Quality templates add value into their work. The easy to
   manage spaces make journaling less intimidating.

Organizing a Notebooking Station
Find a wide assortment of notebooking templates. You can create
them yourself, or download templates from thousands of available
online notebooking templates.

Organize your templates into files or notebooks.
If you are using the traditional hanging file folder system,
create folders for your templates to make them easy to locate. Some
example categories would be: blank templates, countries, ancient
history, floral, insects, character studies, and holidays. There are
many many more categories. Simply add new templates into new folders
as they are acquired.

If you chose to organize your templates into notebooks, you
may want to fill a three ring binder with plastic page holders. Print
of masters of each template for your child and use file dividers to
organize by topic.

Organize your art supplies.

Create and area, bin, or holder to give your child easy access to
scissors, glue, crayons, colored pencils, and markers. Replenish them
a few times year to keep the supplies fresh!

Create a Journal for each child’s completed notebooking pages.

Your children will be very proud of their notebooking pages when
they are complete. Validate their hard work by providing them a place
to store them safely. A three ring notebook with plastic page
protectors works beautifully. At the end of the school year, or when
they have collected quite a collection of pages on a particular
topic, you can even have the pages bound at your local office supply.
Notebooking journals are a beautiful keepsake and even make great
gifts or grandparents!

Taking the time to organize your child’s notebooking templates,
journal, and supplies are essential. If you treat these supplies with
respect, so will they. There is something intrinsically freeing about
journalling about what you are learning. It is one of the best ways
to document what you are learning. Your children will grow to love
their journals. Even reluctant writers can grow by first using the
pages as copywork, then word and phrase collectors, and finally
documenting their learning.

Notebooking is a fruitful resource and skill to add to any
educational environment and works beautifully with homeschool
learning.