Notebooking with Bigger Hearts

[DHT1999]

My son is not doing well with the notebooking . He is doing a GREAT job with everything else. But, the drawing assignments are making him cry, just about everytime! He does fine with the copywork that is involved, it's just the drawing that frustrates him. It's so confusing because he can draw well when he wants to. Last year, he worked through a good portion of Draw Squad but it wasn't a part of his school work.

I am wondering if anyone is willing to share a photo of how their child completed the Science assignment for pgs. 16 and 17of One Small Square: Seashore. It is the exploration assignment where they make a beach and use the pliers, paperclip, and tweezers as bird beaks. He really enjoyed the activity but got very frustrated with the task of drawing a picture of the procedure. He didn't know if he was supposed to draw bird beaks or to draw the tools... the pliers, paperclip, and tweezers. And, to be honest, I wasn't sure myself . I actually drew bird beaks that resembled the tools for him to copy but he couldn't convince himself that that was how he was supposed to do it. (Some perfectionistic tendencies for sure). I did ALOT of hand-holding and tried to help him but he just couldn't complete the assignment. I am a strong visual learner, and I suspect that he may be also. He is a global thinker and has difficulty breaking jobs down into their parts, but he usually does well when I can show him what is expected. I would really appreciate seeing an example of how this assignment could be done. With the Draw Squad book there were illustrations for him to copy and that didn't upset him.

Thanks for any help!

[Tansy]

When we did it last year we laid the tools down on the paper and traced them. Then we added heads and colored to match. I traces the tools because she was having a tough time doing that part. On many assignments last year we traced directly from the book or an enlarged copy. There is nothing wrong with tracing the basics for a child who has no confidence. I look at it as When my kids started to learn their letters they traced them didn't they ?

[beverett]

I looked back at both of my sons' notebooks ( i do not know how to post a pic). They both (7 and 9 then) drew the tools and then a clear tub of "sand" and "pebbles". The 7 yr olds is of course not as good as the 9yr olds. We laid the tools flat on the table and drew them, then I let them look at the container to draw it. My nine yr old is very much a perfectionist and has to have exxxxact instructions, so I know what you mean. Maybe you could do the assignment along with him to start? You make your notebooking page and then he has an example to go on? Then when he starts to get more cozy with it, he would be able to do it on his own? When it says have them draw the experiment, mine have even drawn two different pictures sometimes. I guess it all depends on how you "view" things... each one thinks differently .

[pjdobro]

I was just packing away all of our notebooks and things from last year so I grabbed my dc's notebooks and took a picture of that science exploration for you. I hope you can see it well enough. The one of the left is my ds's and the one of the right is my dd's.

science_birdbeaks.jpg (18.53 KiB) Viewed 3113 times

You can see neither one is that great, but it does get the point across as to what they did. The notebooking part of Bigger can be quite a growth experience. Both of my dc struggled with it somewhat at the beginning. I tried to gently guide them and gradually expect better results and as I looked through their notebook from last year, I saw they did improve tremendously. Try to encourage your ds to hang in there. Perfection is not required. For a scientific drawing, it just needs to be clear not beautiful. He'll continue to improve as the year goes on.

[Heart_Mom]

I think it's okay for the drawings to not be fantastic. I don't have a handy picture of that notebooking page, but I do have one from Unit 2 that you can look at: https://picasaweb.google.com/vondermusi ... uD027TS9QE

I just looked back at the page you're referring to, and the tools my children drew are fairly discernible, but not great. I hadn't given it a second thought!

I think you can relax a little with it (this is coming from someone who doesn't relax well, so I hope it's taken kindly, as I intend it! )

[DHT1999]

The notebooking part of Bigger can be quite a growth experience. Both of my dc struggled with it somewhat at the beginning. I tried to gently guide them and gradually expect better results and as I looked through their notebook from last year, I saw they did improve tremendously. Try to encourage your ds to hang in there. Perfection is not required. For a scientific drawing, it just needs to be clear not beautiful. He'll continue to improve as the year goes on.

Thank you for sharing! And, thanks to everyone else, too! I really appreciate the feedback. I totally agree about there being no need for perfection! Believe me, I am very relaxed about the assignments, but I do want to help him do as many as possible. I don't want to skip them because I know his skills will improve as he practices. I meant that he himself is struggling with perfectionism with the drawing assignments. He didn't want to revisit this assignment today so we will just skip it. He loved today's artistic expression assignment.

I do appreciate the picture. I just want him to see that his illustrations do not have to be perfect, that he can do this!! I shared the photo with him and he says now he understands that it would have been o.k. to draw the tools. That was what was upsetting him. The guide tells them to draw the bird beaks and he couldn't make the connection that that meant the pliers, etc.

Blessings!
Donna

[DHT1999]

I think it's okay for the drawings to not be fantastic. I don't have a handy picture of that notebooking page, but I do have one from Unit 2 that you can look at: https://picasaweb.google.com/vondermusi ... uD027TS9QE

I just looked back at the page you're referring to, and the tools my children drew are fairly discernible, but not great. I hadn't given it a second thought!

I think you can relax a little with it (this is coming from someone who doesn't relax well, so I hope it's taken kindly, as I intend it! )

I wouldn't have given it a second thought if he had been able to complete the assignment but he couldn't because he got so upset about it. This is not the first drawing assignment that has left him in tears. I have tried to help him to understand that he himself can relax with it and that it can be really fun if he would not worry about it. Thank you for sharing!

[HollyS]

My DC were having a hard time with some of their projects at the beginning of last year until I showed them pictures of what other kids were doing. We just went to the weekly check-in board section and scrolled through some of the pictures. I think they were expecting everything to be perfect and it really helped to see what other kids their ages were doing. Since then, it hasn't been an issue.

[Tansy]

I love this bit in Drawing with children BY Mona Brookes, so much I'm going to quote it for educational purposes. Hopefully I won't make to many typos.

"Read these 8 statements and notice how many you tend to agree with:

1. The ability to draw is inherited.
2. There is a right and wrong way to draw.
3. Drawing is simply for pleasure and has no practical use.
4. Art lessons should be given only to those children who show talent and may become artists, when they grow up.
5. Children should acquire drawing techniques only by trial and error.
6. People who can draw only abstractly aren't real artists.
7. Real artists draw from their imagination and don't need to copy things.
8. Real Artists are pleased with most of what they produce.

Most of us feel that certain of these statements are true.
the author states I now believe that none of them are true. As we consider these questions, we begin to relate emotionally to our frustrated childhood experience."

I had my kids answer these questions and I had lots of "Yes they are true responses"
And eyes big as saucers when I told them None of them were true.

It helped a bunch in shifting their own paradigm about drawing. Maybe a chat like that would help him too?

[Heart_Mom]

I think it's okay for the drawings to not be fantastic. I don't have a handy picture of that notebooking page, but I do have one from Unit 2 that you can look at: https://picasaweb.google.com/vondermusi ... uD027TS9QE

I just looked back at the page you're referring to, and the tools my children drew are fairly discernible, but not great. I hadn't given it a second thought!

I think you can relax a little with it (this is coming from someone who doesn't relax well, so I hope it's taken kindly, as I intend it! )

I wouldn't have given it a second thought if he had been able to complete the assignment but he couldn't because he got so upset about it. This is not the first drawing assignment that has left him in tears. I have tried to help him to understand that he himself can relax with it and that it can be really fun if he would not worry about it. Thank you for sharing!

Ahhh ... I see. It can sometimes be hard for some children to not produce "perfect" work. Maybe seeing other children's notebooking pages will help him out!

[my3sons]

My oldest ds colored everything with black crayon and drew stick people for the l-o-n-g-e-s-t time. Drawing was not his thing. So, I can sympathize here! Looking down the road, the PHFHG on up "Draw and Write Through History" books have managed to turn my non-drawer into a pretty decent artist, and they've also helped him learn to enjoy it more. In BHFHG, It helped for me to get out a markerboard and take 1 minute or less to use a dry erase marker to sketch a quick picture of the procedure. I made sure my picture wasn't "all that" , and I think that helped him know his didn't have to look "just so" either.

In general, my dc take about 5 minutes to sketch their procedures. It's more a brief summation of what they observed than an artistic type of an assignment. I also think that if they just want to sketch it in pencil, that's fine. If they like crayons, colored pencils, etc. that's fine too. If they want to photocopy a picture from the book they are using (if you have a copier), and maybe label or color it, that's fine too. There is much leeway in these assignments. I think if you just quickly model a sketch to get him going, and then let him know you only want him to very briefly draw the procedure and then move on, he will begin to be more comfortable with it. I'd probably accept whatever he drew for now, as long as he understood the experiment, and put forth some effort in the completion of the lab sheet. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie

[MomtoJGJE]

Jayden had an awful time for the first half of Bigger with the drawings... She has ALWAYS hated drawing and coloring. I finally told her that it was just to make it stick in her mind because she had to picture what she was going to draw in her head first. And also to give us something to have to look at later and say "oh yeah, I remember that!" So as long as she knew what it was and I could tell what it was, it didn't have to be EXACTLY like the picture in the book (maps were her worst) or exactly like the thing she was supposed to draw.

Once we had that discussion, she still doesn't LIKE the notebooking that makes her draw, but she does it without more than a "oh man, notebooking again today "