With the spookiest holiday around the corner, we don’t want you to be scared by the thought of notebooking for science. These three steps will help you get started!

3 Easy Steps to Get Started With Notebooking

Notebooking is a fantastic way to record what your students are learning in science or any other subject you are studying.

This technique has been around for hundreds of years. Men and woman like DaVinci, Beatrix Potter, and Thomas Edison all took advantage of notebooking.

That said, notebooking is a bit of a departure from the traditional worksheets used in schools today. So, it's challenging to know how to get started.

I trust these tips will help you get over that barrier and start reaping the benefits of notebooking.

Step #1—Read up on notebooking.

The first step for getting started with notebooking is to read up on the concept itself. To effectively teach notebooking, you need to understand the why’s and how’s behind it.

Here are a few articles I have written that will help you learn about notebooking:

• What is Notebooking?

• How to Use Notebooking with Different Ages

• Why Choose Notebooking over Worksheets

Step #2—Choose your materials.

Now that you are familiar with notebooking, you can move onto the next step—choosing the material the students are going to study.

For this step, you need to decide what you want to study and then pick a resource that will present that information to your students.

You can choose to use:

• An encyclopedia;

• A living book;

• A non-fiction book;

• Or even a textbook

Whatever you choose, it needs to present the facts to the students in a way that they will understand. This way, they will pick out the key facts or remember something interesting from what was read.

Step #3—Create a notebooking page.

It is time to put what you have learned and chosen to work as part of step three—creating your very own notebooking page!

Begin by reading the material you chose in step two to your students, or have them read it on their own.

After you have finished reading, discuss what was read with the students. You can ask the following questions as part of your discussion:

1. Leading—This type of question pulls out the most important information. (E.g., What is the difference between male and female lions?)

2. Broad—This type of question will help you see what material the students have absorbed. (E.g., What one thing that you have about lions in this chapter?)

Once you are sure they understand the material, have the students write or dictate to you an age-appropriate narration. This can range from one simple sentence to a paragraph or more.

Then, top it all off will a related image and viola—you have entered the wonderful world of notebooking!

A Final Thought

The best way to get started with notebooking is to learn more about it, to decide what you want to notebook about, and then try it out.

So, have some fun today—ditch those worksheets and give notebooking a whirl!