I love getting rid of things. Making piles of unwanted, old items feels refreshing to me. When it comes to schoolwork, I don’t keep papers and old workbooks around for very long. A while ago, as I was organizing a bookshelf and making a giveaway pile, I came across some old notebooks my boys had made. I opened them and looked through the pages. I loved seeing all their hard work – all the drawings they made about various topics we had learned about in our nature study, the steady improvement of handwriting, and their own personalities that shone through their work. No, I didn’t get rid of those notebooks. I don’t care to keep an old used math book, but a notebook that displays my young child’s learning is like a homeschool keepsake. Not wanting to get rid of them made me think about why notebooking is valuable.
Notebooking Creates Long-Term Memory
As I was looking through the notebooks, one of my boys came over and looked at them with me. He started talking about what he had learned. He looked at his diagrams, drawings, and writing. What surprised me was how much he remembered. It became obvious that notebooking creates long-term memory.
What I love about notebooking is that it taps into many different skills – artwork, creative thinking, synthesizing content, writing, fine motor skills, and probably a lot more. Using different parts of the brain helps create long-term memory. The fact that my boys wanted to look at their notebooks and talk about what they learned a year or two ago was encouraging.
Notebooking is Rewarding
I have four small children, eight years old and under, and three of them notebook. This includes my three-year-old, who notebooks so that she can feel included in our school day. Sometimes homeschooling with little kids can have its crazy moments. It’s easy to forget that something ordinary, like coloring or painting, is actually helping my kids synthesize what they have learned. Honestly, on those busy days, I was thankful no one spilled paint all over the table or lost their favorite color crayon. However, I can now see that notebooking is a small commitment when compared to the reward of remembering and cherishing what was learned.
I sometimes think I need so many other things to homeschool well, but turns out a blank page was the most useful tool I used. A blank page forces a child to think deeply about an idea. Those deep thoughts lead to a child being creative. Why do we want to look at the same picture or read the same book again? I think because there’s something beautiful about it that draws you in. Maybe a notebook doesn’t have the same grandeur as a famous piece of artwork, but it does have personality, creativity, and strong memories. It’s ordinary in the sense that my children work on their notebooks as they do with other assignments, but it’s rewarding because they are doing so much when they notebook.
Notebooking is Hard and Patient Work
Notebooking is hard and patient work. We have done two nature studies so far. The first one was made by Treehouse Schoolhouse, and the other was a Spanish nature study by Niños and Nature. Both were excellent and lots of fun. Each year, my boys have spent months notebooking. We would do our notebooks once a week on Fridays. I kept it simple. They drew pictures about what they learned and wrote a few sentences (I wrote for my younger son). The fact that they both wanted to look at their nature study notebooks showed me that they were proud of their hard work, and that is exactly what I want for them.
Everything today is so fast. What a gift it is to slow down and be consistent with notebooking. It teaches children that learning is slow and patient. There’s no need to rush the process, but rather enjoy it.
Notebooking Creates a Homeschool Keepsake
Is notebooking a homeschool keepsake? Maybe not everyone would think so, but I do. I love that it’s a joy to look at their work and see how much improvement they have made in the course of two years. The best part is that I was there for every lesson. I got to read all the apple books and make apple pie with them. I got to go outside and see how long a blue whale would measure in our backyard. I also got to read books about pumpkins, cut open a pumpkin, and roast the seeds. When we looked through their notebooks, all those memories come flooding back.
Last Thoughts
When comparing a workbook to a notebook, it’s quite a contrast. One has fill-in-the-blanks to write the correct answer, and the other has blank pages in which a child shows their creative and original ideas. Homeschooling is one of the most rewarding things I have done. The mundane and ordinary days are many, but every so often, there’s something wonderful that stands out. All those ordinary days lead up to those bigger moments that show that all the hard work of homeschooling is worth it. For me, notebooking is something I didn’t know how it would turn out. I don’t even know if I gave it much thought. I was just following the lesson plan. It turns out that all that time spent reading, coloring, painting, and writing has produced a homeschool keepsake that my family enjoys looking at and sharing.
Carly McGinty 2025
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