Sunday 18 May 2014

Notebooks for Nature Study, Science, Bible, Poetry & Hymn Study

Nature notebook

I've been sorting through my older children's homeschooling work and came across nature notebooks belonging to two of them, so I thought I'd share some of what we've done with various notebooks over the past 15 years. Two of the boys aren't represented here - I still haven't finished my sorting out yet.
The pages below are from my eldest daughter, JJ's nature notebook when she was between 10 and 12 years of age. She's 25 years old now.
























 


These pages are from Zana's Nature notebook when she was 10 years old. She turned 21 years of age earlier this year.







A page from her Bible notebook:



Below is a page from Hoggy's science notebook when he was about 15 after reading about Galileo. He turned 19 years of age a couple of months ago.  On the right is a psalm from his Scripture Notebook. They started keeping these for recording the verses they'd memorised. He was about 7 years old when he did this page.








Poetry & hymn notebooks (above) - they wrote out their poems as we were memorising them and also some of the hymns we learnt. These were done when Hoggy was about 13 years old.
From his Bible notebook when he was 9 years old:




This is an oral narration from Bengy which I typed up for him and he illustrated when he was 7. The three younger boys each did a Bible notebook where they did narrations on each major event in the Old Testament. They all started off with oral narrations and then progressed to writing them themselves. They enjoyed going back over their 'book' of Bible History and I enjoyed looking through them again.


Science notebook pages which were done after reading I Am Joe's Body along with Fearfully and Wonderfully Made by Paul Brand:

 




And finally, some nature pages from Moozle the youngest. The first one was done last year after she'd pressed some flowers. They were a little mangled in the process but I think they turned out fairly well. The second was one she did this month.






17 comments:

Dove's Rest said...

They are beautiful notebooks. I hope I am able to encourage my kids to keep lovely notebooks.

Celeste said...

They really are so lovely! Thank you for sharing these. It gives me an idea of the wonderful work I can expect if we stick to our various notebooks over the years!

Ambiance Paintings said...

Wow, very impressive. Beautiful work by your children. Whatever homeschooling methods you are doing with them have definitely been working!

Anonymous said...

These sample pages are just wonderful! They remind me of notebooks I had our younger children do (with the older ones I was not so clued in to the benefits of of this activity) as nature journals. The assignment was to write a little about something they saw in nature that day, and illustrate it with a specimen of leaf, etc., or their own drawing. This was easiest if we were on a camping trip, but at home they would often complain and drag their feet - or pencil. In the end, though, they were very proud of their journals and would bring them out to show guests. Unfortunately I didn't take pictures of them before they left the house with their creators. :-(
You obviously are a patient teacher and are inculcating good and beautiful study habits in your children!

Mrs.K said...

What wonderful notebooks! Thank you so much for sharing these pictures with us. I like how you do various notebooks. We haven't started nature notebooks yet; but I'd like to begin incorporating those more soon. Your post was very inspiring for me to try to incorporate different notebooks. Thank you!

Alyssa said...

Love this Carol, I will show these to my dd and pray they inspire her as they do me! Please excuse me for not knowing how to sign out of my older daughter's google account! Love Betty

Unknown said...

thanks for sharing! I hope to get better about incorporating notebooks into our CM homeschool as well!

walking said...

Wow! I love seeing the detail and beauty in these notebooks. We definitely want to inspire the kids at Harvest into putting more care into theirs. So lovely!

Heather said...

They are all so amazing!! What treasures! I started pressing flora and fauna last year and now that spring is back, I am just finding some new things to add. But all those other notebooks are just completely wonderful!!

Laura said...

Thank you for sharing these pages from their notebooks. I am new to the Charlotte Mason method of homeschool, and was looking for examples to better understand notebooking. Now I have some great ideas, and example to show my children.

Carol said...

Glad they were helpful, Laura.

Celeste said...

Thank you for coming back to add this post to the link-up. It remains one of my favorite posts on yours!

Joy said...

Carol, this is such great encouragement for me to keep on, keeping on. Someday I want to be able to look back and see the same thing.

Lisa said...

How lovely, Carol! And what a wonderful testament of your diligence as a homeschool mom.

Unknown said...

I JUST LOVE THIS! I've been going back through all the January Keeping link ups and I really enjoyed seeing this! Thank you!

Amy Maze said...

Beautiful examples! Thanks for giving us a look into your notebooks.

Roshan Jha said...

The best Article that I have never seen before with useful content and very informative.Thanks for sharing info. You can also check our blog : Math notebook