Side by side, you’ll get to have the same tour through HOD’s notebooking I was treated to today! I have done my fair share of different styles of notebooking throughout the years, having taught for 15 years now (7 in ps and 8 within homeschooling). HOD’s notebooking is different in so many ways that enhance learning and encourage creativity. Over the years, I have seen many notebooking assignments that are really nothing more than run-offs that repeat. Others are so open-ended that there are little or no guidelines for assessment. Still others are one dimensional, requiring very little actual thinking from children, as they are often just looking up encyclopedia type information from one source, which really results in a tacked-on kind of research assignment that has little to do with what they learned from the books they were reading in the first place. Some even have stickers dc just place in squares, or cutouts they simply glue here or there. Truly meaningful notebooking requires structure (so dc know the skills they must portray within their entry for assessment), as well as flexibility to allow creativity (so dc’s work reflects their individuality and personality). HOD’s notebooking provides both structure in the form of skill-based learning, and flexibility in the form that no 2 dc’s notebooking entries are the same when completed.
HOD’s notebooking requires dc to draw upon all that they have learned and mesh that learning to create notebook pages specific to each unit. Each week is a mini-immersion in a specific portion of history, while the entire year is a total immersion within a specific time period of history.
So, for example, just within RTR, within a week, dc read excellent living books. The timeline sketches they do, they draw themselves and put their own bent of creativity on each entry. They research a specific place they read about that week in history, and then write a postcard in their own style to share what stood out most to them. They create drawings to match what they have read, but the drawings each look different from another child’s drawing – individuality shines through. They write written narrations about what is read, and they are able to write in their own style, responding to what they’ve read with their own personality.
The Biblical connections they make are theirs, and what one child takes from it is different from what another child does. Oral narrations are shared, but dc’s unique style of retelling is naturally used and encouraged. History projects have clear directions but no picture of what the end result is to look like, as each child’s history project is instead a personal reflection of the way each of them envisioned their projects looking like in the end.
Artwork within “Looking at Pictures” is used for CM’s method of picture study, but then dc must also compare artwork provided in the Student Notebook, noting similarities and differences among them, thus sharing their own thoughts on the matter. Likewise, classical poetry is studied, with a bent toward understanding that particular poet and why they wrote the poems they did, as well as responding to higher level questions that ask the child to ponder their thoughts, ideas, and reactions in response to the poetry, rather than questions that have one right answer.
Mapping exercises are of exact places dc have just read about, and audio CD’s they listen to provide another narrative look at the history they have just read about in their living books. Writing lessons give yet another source of stories linked to the exact history they are studying, and ask them then to mesh what they have learned in all of their studies to create their own creative writing pieces, reflecting their own interests and style. Dc choose their own quotes or facts they found interesting to remember for each of the “Who’s Who?” biographical sketches they do each week.
I could go on here, but the important thing I am trying to share is that HOD’s notebooking assignments encourage creativity, individuality, personality, and unique style in our children. They get our dc thinking more deeply about what they have read, and they focus on the very top peak of higher level thinking skills of Bloom’s Taxonomy… analysis, synthesis, and evaluation… they abound in HOD’s assignments on a daily basis. Rather than just regurgitating facts from another source about one thing, the HOD notebook gives a visual snapshot of everything happening all over the world within that increment of time.
When dc look back at their notebooks, they find within its pages what was truly meaningful to them that year. Rather than just a bunch of facts, or a report style kind of writing on a single event or person, the HOD notebook instead leans much more toward the flavor of CM’s Book of Time. It requires a lot of thinking on the dc’s part about how they are going to design their entries, and there is so much thinking about the people they are getting to know through their history readings… knowing about their lives… about their families… about their dreams, aspirations, and accomplishments… and also knowing what was happening in the world around them.
No two HOD portfolios will ever be the same, as no 2 dc’s reflections upon learning are exactly the same. What is meaningful to each of our dc just jumps off the page at us - the notebook is in fact a window to their minds! And in the end, dc have created their own beautiful book of time as a keepsake forever – what an amazing, memorable way to learn!
And so, now you can see how HOD’s Notebooking is so much more than just a pretty face! In the pictures to follow, you can see more of what I am describing here.
For those of you that have done notebooking in the HOD guides, I’d love to hear you share about your dc’s progress as well!
In Christ,
Julie
P.S. It will take a bit to add the photos below this, so I'll be adding to this for a bit today.
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