Goodbye Notebooking

Well, another great homeschooling idea goes in the "doesn't work for us" column. I love the idea of notebooking. The kids are supposed to create pages about something they have learned in which they write a summary and then draw or use scrapbooking techniques for embellishment. My kids are completely uninterested. We were also going to include any other useful info in the notebooks (maps, etc.) so the kids could go back someday and look at their work. It just didn't work. I ended up spending way too much time tracking down papers and putting them in the notebooks.

Now we're doing "file-foldering". I still want the kids to write about what we're studying, but now I'm not worried about them doing drawings or other decorations. And the papers aren't organized into notebooks. I just put them into file folders in the file drawer by my desk. It's much more efficient and meets the educational goal of having the children write about what their learning in order to strengthen writing skill and reinforce the information.

I am very thankful for the flexibility of homeschooling!