Notebooking Archives - Educating Laytons

Notebooking How to Train Your Dragon

December 14, 2012 By Stef

Turning reading into tactile fun with notebooking: How to Train Your Dragon: How to Be a Pirate!

We recently have had to take a Harry Potter break.

The vocabulary words are amazing, beyond a 4th grade reading level. I purchased a HP vocabulary resource so the boy could look them up. He didn’t. And leaving it up to him to “figure it out” in context every other page isn’t really working.

We needed to find a new fun series fast.

Something exciting, all boy challenging adventure, but not as intense as HP!

Notebooking, How to Train Your Dragon: How to Be a Pirate.

Right now we’re focusing on my favorite pages from The Notebooking Fairy: Character Sketches, Timeline, and Postcards. (pointing out character & virtues has been big for an almost 10yr old boy who seems to struggle with how he feels and what he knows he should do).

Hiccup is not a magical hero like Harry Potter. He is a scrawny boy, unsure of himself, seeking to be great at something but just awkward right now! He isn’t a hero (yet), he isn’t popular — he is like my son.

I also incorporated a few tactile ideas to our pages. (be sure to snap any photos)

create your own dragon (from play doh)
write a “character sketch” for your newly created dragon
build your Viking ship (from legos)
make a shield (cardboard)

Have you read the series How to Train Your Dragon? I’d love to know if you added any projects to the reading!

A note for moms, it’s great to find something our children like and enjoy … but we need to be careful we’re not helping our children to have idols. I am learning this the hard way. I am Aaron crafting the golden cow for my son.
I pumped Thomas the Tank Engine down my son’s throat. Then Batman. Then Star Wars. Then Harry Potter. I was the one in control of what we bought (books, toys, clothes, etc.) I was so excited he wanted to read I was blind to protecting his heart.
When it came to a point that my son was overly jealous of a friend’s things, what he was doing, where he was going, and all wrapping around Harry Potter … I can see how I failed my son. There was no healthy balance. If our children are unable to put something down and walk away, we need to talk about it and reevaluate our loves!

Looking for more reading fun? Try this free Book Title Scavenger Hunt!

Filed Under: Notebooking

Notebooking: Norway

July 19, 2012 By Stef

We headed back to Europe for our mini notebooking tour and picked Norway this week!

FYI – the adder is the only poisonous snake in Norway. We sorta stalled out on Vikings. Vikings is it’s own notebook – so I’m trying to redirect back to Norway, terrain, resources, weather, etc. before we move on to another country.

Now that we’ve started our first day of the new homeschool year … our summer notebooking will be moved toward the end of the afternoons / early evenings and move at the rate of his interest.

Have you ever stalled out on a great project? How do you keep that momentum going??

Filed Under: Notebooking, Uncategorized Tagged With: norway

Notebooking: Animals, Sharks

July 12, 2012 By Stef

My kids love animals so we are Notebooking: Animals, Sharks. I love to turn their curiosity into learning opportunities. This week we stopped notebooking thru Europe to do a little notebooking on sharks. I thought it would be great to start a new notebook this year just for animals!

Of course Notebooking Fairy offers a fantastic “animals” notebooking page – it is by far my favorite! (by the way – did you know she featured me in her notebooking round up? giggle snort — my first time being “featured” there!)

I love this page because I am real quick to print out National Geo Kids info, read it, 3-hole punch it — yet the boy never shares what he thinks is cool nor does he touch a pencil. This page offers plenty of space for him to write out what he found interesting (not always what I find interesting) along with the facts we read earlier together.

Enchanted Learning offers anatomy pages, but my hands on learner likes a volunteer from the shark family!

Throw in a sketch, a short story, and a word hunt for a fun little Notebooking: Animals, Sharks! Oh yes – for the free SHARK word hunt head over to my friend Marci’s place, The Homeschool Scientist to see how you can incorporate your beach vacation into learning opportunities!