Commonplace Books/Learning Journals/Notebooking

Here is the long awaited post I have promised to those who have emailed me in the past asking for ideas and examples and how we create these awesome and fun copybooks.  HERE are the copybooks we have chosen to use but any kind of resource such as a spiral ring notebook, or a 3 ring binder would work.  I have a friend who, at the end of each year takes the pages of her children's notebook and has them made into an actual book!

What ever a person decides to call them! Here I have shared several photos of various pages from my children's learning journals. We have chosen this method of learning in our homeschool instead of the more typical ways of showing information received which come in the in the form of tests, book reports, quizzes, etc. It is another from of narration if you will. Oral narration certainly has its place but I am finding my children enjoy the use of their learning journals so much more! We have done this for several years and are getting quite the collection of the most beautiful works of art imagined. In their pages I am finding the imagination of each child while still being able to critique in a sense the depth of their learning.

So what exactly goes into a commonplace/learning journal copybook? Basicall, anything that can fit between the pages of a book! Here is a list of what I have seen in ours!

Favorite poems Passages from a book that is being read
Scripture verses that were important to them
Tidbits of facts from history, geography, nature studies, composer study, or art study Latin sayings Recipes and photos of the dish they was prepared
Photos of a recent project that they created
Drawings
Diagrams
Vocabulary words that they found interesting. I have one child who loves saying words and she puts them into her journal Summaries of their reading
Coloring pages from online pertaining to something being learned
Clip art
Maps from a particular geographical location pertaining to studies
Details from a field trip taken along with photos

The ideas are endless. I'm 100% certain I have forgotten much of what I see in their books but off the top of my head I hit it pretty well!  If you have more ideas not listed here I would love to hear about them. There is always room for more imagination.