Postcards in Notebooks {50 Things Series}

The blog post 50 Things to Put in a Notebook continues to be one of the most popular how to posts here at The Notebooking Fairy. So to bring that post to life, I am going to begin a blog series, showing you specific examples of those fifty different things.

Fifty Things to Put into a Notebook:  #1 Postcards

I have always been crazy about postcards. Most any destination has them. They are small, don’t break, and are inexpensive.

And now that I am a homeschool mom, I have discovered new educational uses for postcards, namely in notebooks!

Postcard Example: Philadelphia

This collage postcard of historic Philadelphia was a perfect review of our early American history lessons. I gave it to my daughter and had her label the items and places pictured.  You can see that for two of the places, she also wrote the significance — Carpenter’s Hall and Independence Hall, where famous events occurred.

Years later we had the chance to take a family trip to Philadelphia, but at the time we had never been.

Thanks to the power of the Internet and groups like Postcard Kids, you can trade postcards with families around the world, even requesting special locations to match your upcoming lessons. That’s exactly how we had this great Philadelphia card on hand when we studied American history.

(Another fun site is Postcrossing, but you never know where you will get a postcard from.)

Postcard Example: Pilgrims

These pilgrim pages are another example of how postcards can add to the beauty of a notebook and illustrate the text on the page. (Again, these are cards we received as part of postcard exchanges arranged at Postcard Kids.)

Postcard Example: Civil Rights Musuem

Postcards are great visual reminders of field trips and are perfect for recapping what you learned once you are back at home. These notebooking pages about the National Civil Rights Museum are an example. Inside the museum, you cannot take photographs, but the postcards serve as a wonderful substitute.

She found it quite easy to write notes about the field trip with the postcards forming the structure of the layout. All she had to do was make notes about what is represented on the cards.

Tip for Using Postcards on Notebooking Pages

Use photo corners to affix your postcards to cardstock pages. If your postcards came in the mail, this is a great way to preserve the postage and note on the back.

If you have ever found your notebooks growing boring, just stay tuned as you see how varied they can be. There are at least fifty different ways!