- in Inspiration , Show Offs by Jimmie Quick
Math Notebooking Example: Decimals
Here is another example from Rebecca’s 10 year old son. What amazing math notebooking we see in this example about Adding and Subtracting Decimals. Enjoy this humorous and detailed page and then look at my observations below.
My Observations
1. Plain Notebooking Paper
Notice that this notebooking page uses nothing fancy — just lined filler paper and a pen (or pencil). This narration was done without any printable pages and even without any color, but this page is far from boring.
Normal, inexpensive notebook paper is adequate for notebooking. This page proves it.
2. Cute Cartoon Style
Of course, the child’s written explanations demonstrate that he fully grasps the addition and subtraction of decimals, but the little illustrations give this page character and humor. An otherwise dull topic is suddenly engaging with the help of little stick people and charts.
If your child enjoys this style of drawing, by all means let him use it in his school work. It will increase motivation and retention. And you get to laugh more as well. It is okay to be silly sometimes.
3. Minor Errors
I see some misspelled words and several punctuation and capitalization errors. But none of them detract from the meaning of the notebooking page. This mom did not obsess over small issues but instead focused on the quality of the explanation. Bonus points for Rebecca!
I want to thank Rebecca and her son once again for contributing images of his notebooking pages for our instruction. They are fantastic examples and really illustrate what you are aiming for in notebooking — a student-created presentation of the ideas in the lesson.