- in How-tos , Tips by Jimmie Quick
Top Ten Reproducible Books for Notebooking
Over the years of homeschooling, I’ve discovered some resources mesh perfectly with a notebooking approach. Here are my top 10 choices for reproducible books (or printable software) that are great for notebooking homeschoolers. I have owned and used everything on this list.
Bible, History, and Geography
1. Remembering God’s Awesome Acts by Susan Mortimer
Remembering God’s Awesome Acts is really a muti-disciplinary resource because it incorporates history, bible, art, language arts, and literature.
The subtitle for this book is Create-A-Notebook Bible and History Series, so it’s obvious that the reproducible pages are designed to work well with notebooking. We used this as a complement to a study of ancient history. (There is also a Vol. 2 in the series called Remembering God’s Chosen Children.)
2. Reproducible Maps, Charts, Timelines and Illustrations
This Bible resource is full of printable goodness and can be used year after year. We used this resource both for notebooking and for index card timelines.
3. WonderMaps software
In that past, I always used a simple Scholastic reproducible book of outline maps. Then I found WonderMaps. Wow. Just wow. This software allows you so many options for what to print and how to print that you can almost always find the perfect map with it. I only wish I had found this years ago.
4. History Through the Ages CD-ROM Set Creation to Present
Many years ago I invested in this rather pricey luxury of the Homeschool in the Woods complete timeline figures set. Considering that I’ve used it year after year for both timelines and notebooking, it has been a good investment.
5. Easy Make & Learn Series
This series teaches historical periods — for example Colonial America— through the creation of simple paper models. For children who like cutting, pasting, and coloring, these books are a hit. To put them into a notebook, simply flatten then into 2D.
6. Time Travelers Series by Homeschool In The Woods
Amy Pak of Homeschool in the Woods obviously loves both lapbooking and notebooking becuase her Time Travelers CDs are full of printable templates. Each CD is truly a complete unit study in itself. See The Civil War: Time Travelers on CD-ROM as an example. Other titles in the series cover the American Revolution, Explorers, the Industrial Revolution, and Early 19th Century.
Science and Nature
7. Giant Science Resource Book
This book was the very first Evan Moor book I ever owned. It makes me nostalgic just to think about it.
It is full of great printable pages for a wide variety of science disciplines. It works well with either lapbooking or notebooking and is filled with simple outline drawings of the science being covered. Children who like to color will enjoy adding embellishments to the uncluttered pages.
8. Considering God’s Creation by Susan Mortimer
This science and nature volume is a great base for an elementary course or a wonderful reference for nature journal pages. We especially loved the classification sheets for leaves and rocks. It is another one of those reproducible books that I used off and on for several years.
9. Human Body, Grades 5-8: 100+ Reproducible Activities
These pages are truly more worksheets than “activities.” But the emphasis on diagrams makes them easy to transform into notebooking pages. Sometimes we have simply hole punched the pages, and other times my daughter has cut out portions to create more original notebooking pages.
Art
10. Dover art coloring books
If you keep art notebooks, coloring pages are a nice addition. The Dover line has specific artists or artistic movements such as the book of Impressionist Art Masterpieces to Color: 60 Great Paintings from Renoir to Gauguin.
Those are my top ten choices. I’m sure you have used some great reproducible books that I either haven’t ever used or didn’t include. I’d love to hear your additions to my list. Leave me a comment.