Calendar Math Notebook Page Links

Calendar Math Notebooking pages are great for elementary kids who could use an everyday review of numbers, money and calendar terms.  There are so many pages designed for K-5th grade students.  Most listed are free downloads (with the exception of one) and none of them are the same so you get a nice variety.  Once you see them you may want to incorporate them into your homeschool.
It's really very easy.  Take the pages that you want to use and print out as many as you may need for the year/month/term and bind them together to have it in it's own notebook.  You can take it to your local office store and have them do it for you if you don't have your own binding machine.

So here they are!!


Spell Out Loud has a nice selection of homeschool blogs that have made their own pages.
http://www.spelloutloud.com/2012/09/our-kindergarten-calendar-journal/



Confessions of a Homeschooler now has a set of pages for Elementary students.
http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/blog/2012/09/elementary-daily-learning-notebook.html



COAH also has a selection of pages for preschoolers. 
 http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/blog/2012/09/preschool-daily-learning-notebook.html




 Notebooking Nook has a months of the year set that would be great for K-2nd grade to practice calendar terms and usage.
http://notebookingnook.blogspot.com/2012/09/freebie-my-months-of-year-notebooking.html



 A Calendar Notebooking page made by a teacher for 2nd-5th graders.
http://learnings-a-hoot.blogspot.com/search/label/math



 Another teacher created page.  My guess is this is made for 1st-3rd graders
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Math-book-insert



Teacher created page but this one practices more than calendar terms.  There is rounding, money, fact families and more.  Great if you need a little more variety for your day. It's listed as K-2nd but I believe 1st-3rd is more realistic.
 http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Calendar-Math



Homeschool Creations has made the best set out there yet.  Their pages offer the most variety and it's a set rather than just one page.
 http://www.homeschoolcreations.net/2012/08/calendar-notebook-binder-printables/



NOT FREE but a cheap download of calendar notebooking pages.  There are 11 pages and each has a theme for each month or holiday.  All the pages practice different concepts are are not the same from page to page.  If you're not satisfied with the free sets above you may want to check out purchasing this set.
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/August-June-Calendar-Journal


Page for practicing calendar concepts for K-2nd graders
 http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Math-Calendar-Journal



This calendar page is specific for the 2012-2013 school year.
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Calendar-Journal-Math-Worksheet


Like I said there are a variety of pages for free and you're sure to find the one you need from this line-up.  Have a blessed day!!

Free Vocabulary Notebooking Pages

Instead of posting each individual link for all the free vocabulary Notebooking Pages that I've found, I'm going to post them all on my blog. So here they are and all FREE.

From Notebooking Nook. Three pages for different levels.
http://notebookingnook.blogspot.com/2009/04/vocabulary-practice-pages.html

Google Document with graphic organizing theme
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6s6X6hF66_WZDdkMTRjMjItNmM5MS00ZjU4LWFhNDctZjAwYjdlMTY4OTBk/edit?hl=en_US

Two different pages from Notebooking Fairy. One for vocabulary and the other for word study
http://notebookingfairy.com/2011/05/vocabulary-notebooking-pages/

Teacher created vocabulary notebooking page
http://mrsrojasteaches.blogspot.com/2011/08/word-of-week-freebie.html

Vocabulary Rock and Roll Activity from Teacher's Notebook
http://www.teachersnotebook.com/product/Christina%20Bainbridge/vocabulary-rock-and-roll


Magical Words Page
http://oneextradegree.blogspot.com/2011/06/survival-guide-info-and-freebie.html




Another teacher created vocabulary page
http://www.ladybugsteacherfiles.com/2011/03/vocabulary-graphic-organizer.html

Vocabulary page.  Click on the picture and it will take you to Teachers Pay Teachers site for the free download
http://www.ateacherstreasure.com/2012/03/all-good-things-must-come-to-end.html




There you have it.  A nicely compiled list of vocabulary notebooking pages; all free.  I'm sure you'll be able to find a page to meet your needs.  

Blueprint for Field Trips

Field Trips are so much fun and they can round out a unit study, history lesson, science lesson or whatever. There are also some neat ways to expand your field trip experience.  And what's wrong with a little sneaky learning?


I'll use our Mississippi Petrified Forest Museum as an example.  We took a visit there last May and had a good time. This was my last field trip to plan for the year for our local homeschool group as our field trip coordinator.

Before going to the museum I explained to my kids what we might see there and what petrified wood is  We checked out some books from the library on the topic (and I even included some books on erosion since that seems to be a big theme on the nature trail at the museum) and why it's so interesting.  We checked out mostly nonfiction books since there isn't much children's literature about petrified wood. So my kids were aware of what to encounter and was even somewhat knowledgeable on the topic.

If your children are older, they can write about what they think they'll see on the field trip and compare it to what they actually saw once the field trip is over. They can also think of some questions to ask the adults in charge.

Once there we visited the gift shop and browsed around and picked up some souvenirs.  Postcards are great for notebooking pages. The Notebooking Fairy has some great tips on how to notebook with postcards. She also has some free printable Postcard Notebooking pages .  Here is another great example of postcard notebooking. 
Be sure to pick up some extra postcards to send to their penpals.  This is a great way to get them to write about what they saw and learned. 

While we were in the gift shop we picked up the brochure for the nature walk and make our way outside.  Brochures can also be included in notebooking.  We had a good time walking and reading about the points of interest from the brochure while we were walking. 

Don't forget to take lots of pictures!  They can take the pictures and add captions to them in their notebooking pages (can you tell I'm a fan of notebooking?). Photo journaling is alot of fun and great practice for new/reluctant writers.

It can be hard to get everyone to look at the same camera.

After playing and having a picnic lunch it was time to go home.  We talked all the way home about what we enjoyed and what we saw.  Getting them to talk about it is a great exercise for them to arrange their thoughts before writing about it.

Then of course after some much needed down time we pulled out our notebooking pages and got to work writing about our field trip.  If you need a set of notebooking pages here is a fantastic generic set. 

If you need a little more instruction on actually notebooking a field trip click here.

I love how field trips and notebooking go hand-in-hand.  It kind of combines traveling, journaling and scrapbooking.  It's also a learning tool you can use to help develop writing skills.  With a little creative effort you can make field trips memorable and fun.

Our State Study

This year as we study Early American History with Adventures in My Father's World we are also doing a state study. Yes, there is one with Adventures but it was just so boring so we came up with our own.  We spend 2 days on each state. 

My 2nd grader has her own notebook that is for our history and geography.  I'm not sure why I didn't take a picture of her notebook.

We have a United States Map in the front of our state pages.  When we "visit" a state, it gets colored in.  It looks like we still have a long way to go.

Next is our notebooking pages about the state.  This page is on Georgia, our first state to study.   I use mini post-it notes on the first page to mark each state for easy reference. There are a lot of great state study pages for free.  This Squidoo Lens has alot of great options.  The one I used is the last notebooking page set "Two Page State Layout".
This is Page 1.  You can use this set for any state.  Instead of getting her to draw and color the state flag I used a great product that I'll tell you about a little later.

Page 2.  This is for Tennessee.  We actually got to visit Tennessee on a recent family trip.  While we were there we visited the Belle Meade Plantation in Nashville (see the pic).  We used the brochure to enhance our page. 

State Coloring Page.  There are lots out there.  You can google "Mississippi flag coloring page" or whatever state you're studying and get several great options,  but these are my favorites.

Another great coloring page.  My Kindergartener loves coloring pages and it makes it more bearable for her who finds this type of study very tedious.  Again you can google this, "Alabama State Coloring Page" and get some good options.  Here is the one I use.

Pictured above are our state study packs.  Each bag has a printable element to complete our state study.  Bag #1 State Seals; Bag #2 State Birds and Flowers; Bag #3 State flags.  Our state notebooking pages requires all of these and I made it easy for my 2nd grader to be able to just open the bag she needs, cut out the specific state and paste it onto the notebooking page.  NotebookingPages.com has a great product for this.  I like the convenience of having this already printed out and ready to use.  For the label I just cut out the label for the first page of each set and package taped it onto my bag.  Easy Peasy.  We kept the bags in the front pocket of our 2" think 3 ring binder.

For facts and information my favorite resource is America the Beautiful, third series from Scholastic.  Each state has it's own book and they are expensive ($30 EACH!!).  I would just plan ahead and request them from my local library.  Don't worry, if you're library doesn't have this set, there are plenty of great reference books out there to choose from.  You just have to do some research.

So far we are really liking this set up.  I hope I've inspired some great ideas for a future state studies.

US Presidents Study

Notebooking Nook has a new product on Currclick.com about notebooking the Us Presidents.  With it being in election season, this is such a great time to learn more about our US Presidents past and present.  Here is my 5 star review for Presidents of the United States Notebooking Pages



"This is one notebooking product that will be used over and over through the years. Learning about our presidents is an important part of our american history and being able to notebook about it is even better. This is a current and complete file of all the US Presidents from George Washington to Barack Obama. It's also massive with a total of 489 pages! Each page is "themed" meaning that it's heading is for a particular president. No generic pages here except for the Cabinet member form which is the last page in the download. There are 11 pages dedicated to each president with an assortment of regular and primary lines. Now your middle schooler, high schooler and your elementary student can notebook on the same topic. All pages are adorned with the Seal of the President of the United States and most have "doodle boxes" to illustrate important facts. There is even a fact page for each president to record date, death, marriage, children, years served, etc. Another thing I love is that this download comes with a Table of Contents. I know that's an odd thing to point out but it's so handy to be able to print the table of contents and put it in a file and know in a glance (without having to turn on the computer) what notebooking files you have on the computer.

Reasons for 5 star rating:
* Table of Contents
* Regular and Primary lines.
* 11 pages for each president including fact page
* Nicely laid out pages and images
* Good value for the money"
Right now it's only $1.00.  It's regular price is $4.99.  I love a  good deal. 
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More great links to check out for US Presidents study

President Notebooking by Notebooking Pages.com They usually do a good job but it's usually alot more expensive. 

FREEBIE: Notebooking Fairy  I can always count on the Notebooking Fairy to have great free pages.  These are generic pages.  Although that could come in handy.  You can print out a bunch and save it in a notebook.

FREEBIE: Activity Village  Famous person/US Presidents.  Not all presidents, just a few but it's free.

FREEBIE: Homeschool Share Lapbooking Oddles and Oddles of links for lapbook printables with pictures

FREEBIE: Unit Study by another homeschool mom.  Geared toward elementary students.

FREEBIE: Homeschool Helper Online  Lots of great pages and not just for presidents.


~~Happy Homeschooling

Valentine's Day fun

Valentine's Day is upon us and I'm already looking for ways to incorporate the holiday of love into our school day.  I've found these great links to help out with that.




Currclick.com

Free Notebooking Pages
Free Unit Study
Free Printable Valentine's cards
Free Daily Assignment Cards for February
1 Corinthians Chapter 13 Copywork $1.99
Another 1 Corinthians Chapter 13 Copywork also $1.99 --my favorite of the two.
Valentine's Day Party Kit.  Cute kit. Printable cards, party ideas and more.  Only 50 cents
Free Valentines Day Mathbooking Journal
Valentine's Day copywork projects  Very cute.  $2.00

Other

Free Couples Notebooking Pages --although I don't agree that Pocahontas and John Smith was a couple.

List of Valentine unit studies, pages and more. From Homeschoolshare.com

Valentine Crafts

More craft ideas

Reading list from prescool to young adult

Pintrest favorites by homeschool blogger: 3 Boys and a Dog

That about round it up for this post but if I see any more freebies or cheap resources , I'll post it.

Notes on Notebooking

I heard about notebooking at the beginning of this school year and wanted to try my hand at it.  I'm still trying to get the hang of it but I can already see results.  When I ask my 2nd grader to write in her nature journal to describe the picture that she just drew her usual scribbling is something like... "I saw a bird".  REALLY?  That's it?!  Where did you find the bird?  What did it look like (what color)?  What was it doing?  I urged her repeatedly to add more detail to her sentences.  For weeks it looked like my efforts were in vain and then one day she took her journal out on her own and she drew a very simple picture but her sentence made me smile.
"I saw a mushroom in the grass in my front yard"
YES!  Sweet victory.  You see this same child was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder when she was 3-years-old.  It only affected her speech.  With alot of prayer, speech therapy and encouragement she is now talking and writing in longer more detailed sentences.  Hallelujah!

I wanted to share some resources to get you started if you're thinking about trying notebooking in your homeschool.  If you want to find out more about notebooking like how it works and how it will work in your homeschool; just follow these links.
http://www.lifestyle-homeschool.com/how-do-i-start-notebooking.html

Article by Cindy Rushton

http://www.jeanniefulbright.com/charlotte-mason/notebooking

These journals are great for K-2nd graders.  It gives them plenty of space to draw and write.  The primary lines are plenty big but may not be big enough for K5 children that have issues with writing.


http://www.mead.com/meadstore/catalog/productDetail.jsp?prodId=09956


The internet has been such a great resource of teaching resources.  There are so many great notebooking pages out there just waiting for you to print out and use.

For nature journals:  
http://www.hsunlimited.com/freestuff/dl/Nature%20Study%20Pages.pdf

Great freebie page but this site also has some great pages for sale.
http://notebookingnook.blogspot.com/2009/10/freebies-organized-by.html

Very cute site.  Has some great pages and tips.  The blog is especially worth noting.
http://notebookingfairy.com/
More free pages.  Slightly more varied categories.
http://www.homeschoolnotebooking.com/category/free-pages/
Printable paper just like from the Primary Journal I mentioned above,.
http://donnayoung.org/penmanship/blank-top-paper.htm

Another great Donna Young link
http://www.donnayoung.org/forms/planners/notebook.htm


I hope I have encouraged you to possibly jump out of your box and try notebooking.  I hope to post more about our notebooking experiences in the coming months.  Happy Notebooking!