A Word on Parental Involvement in Notebooking Projects

by Valorie Delp | More from this Blogger

30 Apr 2008 01:41 PM

If you're just now joining us, this is the third in a series of blogs in which I am sharing my process and product of our notebooking project. In the first blog, I talked about materials that you should get. In the second blog, I walked you through step by step of the basics. Here, we're going to talk about just a few more things to keep in mind.

Keep In Mind the Big Goal

I debated about whether or not to show this picture. It is a small notebook that was glued onto the flap of the project. In it, I wrote some key dates and ideas that we decided she should remember, and she wrote the definitions or significance of the terms. It's not pretty. I would've made the pages more even. I would've written in fancy ink. I would've drawn small Viking doodles. But it wasn't my project.

I think the temptation for some of us is to try to make our children do it the way we would do it. But the goal for this was two fold: a) to create an 'informal' notebook of sorts of all the periods and peoples we study in history over the next year and b) for my daughter to pull out the most important points of information and to communicate that information in written form. Had this been a formal project for presenting at a history fair. . .well then, it would've gotten re-written. But it wasn't. It is for her use. She can now wax eloquent on Vikings--in fact, much more so than I expected--so I left it as is.

I share to encourage all of you who can related to my moment of temptation that it doesn't always have to look super nifty for it to achieve it's purpose. Be careful of squelching your child's desire to do this because of perfectionism.

Encouraging Creative Processes

I helped my daughter decide on the most important information. After that I stepped back. The rest of it she came up with on her own. She had to figure out how to lay everything out, what to do about the page being too big for the binder, and how to solve the problem of the ink leaking through to the other side. Not big problems for adults to solve--especially those of you who are creative and enjoy scrapbooking anyways--but for a 9 year old that's a lot of thinking.

For your child to get the most out of the project, step back as much as possible. When you're asked for help, try to get your child to come up with a good answer rather than giving one. With that said--enjoy!!!

Valorie Delp shares recipes and kitchen tips in the food blog, solves breastfeeding problems, shares parenting tips, and current research in the baby blog, and insight, resources and ideas as a regular guest blogger in the homeschooling blog. To read more articles by Valorie Delp, click here.

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Hello everybody! My name is Valorie and I am one busy lady! When I'm not writing or editing for families, I am busy trying to get my brood of 5 in line.

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Pam Connell (2658) 30 Apr 2008 03:18 PM

Did you work on the scrapbook throughout the year as the units were studied, or is it an end-of-the year project to go back and review the highlights?

Valorie Delp (49340) 30 Apr 2008 03:28 PM

We will work on it throughout the year. I school year round and so we are just "starting" something new--even though it's at the end of hte year. When she's finished with the coursework from this she'll have a binder full of pages like this highlighting each period. . .people group. . .whatever we see as very important. We're not quite done with Vikings yet. . .so there might be another page that goes in there.