Our new notebooking strategy...

This semester I've started doing our notebooking a little bit differently. I recently read a blog about a homeschooling mom who used "altered" composition notebooks for her notebooking. I thought maybe using comp books would be great for us. We've tried lapbooking in the past and although, we had a great time doing them, I ended up doing most of the work. Also, my son became frustrated when he didn't have enough room to write on the lapbook piece. Then I tried traditional notebooking with a three ring binder. I had papers EVERYWHERE. We just aren't organized enough to put and KEEP everything in the binder. It seemed like every time we put something in, it mysteriously let things slip out. Anyway, so I was on the search for a new idea and it seemed as if the comp books might work for us. I wanted something that could be as elaborate or simple as necessary, as I have kids at various levels. So when we started REAL Science Odyssey - Life this semester, it seemed like the perfect time to implement it. I also used the same concept for our TX history study. I really got into decorating the cover, and I loved the way it turned out so much, that I plan on decorating all of their notebooks for next year. I put clear packing tape over the cover of them to help with the longevity! The idea is simple, just use the pages like you would a normal spiral notebook (if you have work that needs to be written out), or just glue/tape in any lapbooking or notebooking components that you might have. Our last step in any activity is to put it in our notebooks. With the strength of the binding and the gluing of the pieces, nothing has fallen or gotten ripped out yet. Some notebooking pages, I do trim down so that it will fit, but sometimes I just make the cutting and pasting part of the assignment (which is always good for my son who struggles with his fine motor skills). Hope this gives you an idea about how I've used these in my school. Oh, and I've had lots of questions about how RSO Life is going and it is going fabulously! I do "beef it up" for my oldest. Any topic we cover, I make him read in more depth in his science encyclopedia and pull out more details for his notebook.