Notebooking Page: Blank pages with banners and boxes

Here is a set of pages that are split into two sections, each with a banner and a box on the side. This page would be for items that you don't have much to write about, just a sentence or two, or perhaps you could use it for a visual dictionary - write the word in the banner, define it on the writing lines, and use the box to draw a picture of the word.

**General Blank Page w/ banners and boxes - all four sizes in one file**

Notebooking Mini-Office Pages: The days of creation

Here are some pages that can be used as a "mini-office" reference page for your child's Bible notebooks:

**6 days of creation - filled out**

**6 days of creation - blank**

**7 days of creation - blank**

Notebooking page/mini-office - Adam's family tree

Here is a landscape page for the beginning of Adam's family tree, as found in chapters 4 and 5 of Genesis. There is room for Abel, Cain and Seth, along with the first few decendents of Cain and Seth. There is a blank area under the space for Abel; you can use this to have your student make a note of what happened to Abel and the scripture reference, to remember why Abel has no recorded lineage. The three small spaces are for Jabal, Jubal and Tubal-Cain, the decendents of Cain.

**Adam's Family Tree**

Weekend tid-bits: cheap glasses

There is no Frugal Friday this week, because Crystal has dared to go on vacation, imagine that! But I did want to share a cheap glasses place with you in case you need an extra pair - or need to buy new ones because some nameless child has broken theirs two days after the warranty expired!

Zenni Optical was on FOX news and they have a huge selection of glasses. I think these cute ones would be a good second pair for my daughter - she tends to be rough on, well, everything and I'm thinking an inexpensive second pair isn't such a bad idea.

You can get incredible stylish new frames from Zenni, not that I care *too* much about style. I don't want to look like a refugee from the 70's if I don't have to, though! (And really, aren't we all refugees from that bizarre decade!) You can even get Zenni Optical $ 8 Rx eyeglasses - eight bucks, people! You can even get sunglasses, bifocals and other specialty lenses. I might even splurge and finally get me a pair of Rx sunglasses at these prices, it would certainly be better than those stupid clip-on sunglasses.

Best Ideas from the Heart of the Matter Online Conference

If you didn't get a chance to attend the HOTM Conference, you don't know what you missed! Despite the occasional technical glitch, it was still a lot of fun and well worth it! I heard about half the speakers and look forward to hearing the rest via download in a few days.

Angela from HOTM asks this morning what are the best ideas we took away from the Conference. I took away several, but wouldn't you know that this morning I can only think of a couple!

~ Timelines - I got two great ideas for timelines at the conference. We plan to do a good bit of notebooking this year, and I was already planning on using some timelines in our notebooks, but was probably going to end up just doing them stacked like regular pages. Amy Pak of "Homeschool in the Woods", however, had a great picture of how to do accordian-fold timelines for a notebook, so simple it made me go, "duh!". Leave your first page intact, but have all your remaining pages trimmed by about 3/4 of an inch, then use packing tape to tape them together, edge to edge, so that you can accordian fold them into place. (Trim the edges so that the additional pages don't bind up against the binder rings.) This way, you can fold out the timeline into one visible entity that works together.

Another timeline idea was either from Amy Pak or from Linda Hobar, I don't remember which. I know this idea is in Linda's "The Mystery of History" book, so maybe it came from her talk. For a large timeline that's easily storable, buy a pattern cutting board from a fabric store, and use the blank side of it. You can make a very large one this way, with lots of room for pictures and labels, yet it folds down very thin and can be stored in a closet or behind a door with little problem. I love this idea!

~ Card stock savings - Folks who use lapbooking and notebooking in their studies often like to buy card stock because it's sturdier and comes in lots of colors. The best idea for saving money on this came from a participant in one of the chats, but I don't remember who. The big craft stores carry card stock, and "the big 3" (A.C. Moore, Michael's and Hobby Lobby) pretty much always have a weekly 40% off coupon in the Sunday newspapers. Use that to buy your card stock and you will save a considerable amount!

Be sure to check back with HOTM to see what other great ideas the other moms took away from the conference - there certainly were a lot, I hope that others can share them so we can all benefit!

Notebooking Page: The Nomadic Life

Most of the very earliest peoples were nomads, traveling to sustain themselves and their herds if they had them. Here is a notebooking pages titled for writing about the nomads:

**The Nomadic Life - Half-Inch Primary Paper**

**The Nomadic Life - Three-Quarter Inch Primary Paper**

**The Nomadic Life - One Inch Primary Paper**

**The Nomadic Life - Wide Rule Paper**

Notebooking Page: What Is Light?

To begin our study of light, we ask the very simple (ha!) question. "What Is Light?"

**What Is Light? - all four sizes in one file**

Author, Author! matchbooks for book reports and lapbooks

I was inspired by a great idea from the HOTM Conference this past weekend, and here are the first results of this particular idea. I'm going to start creating a series of "matchbooks" for authors that can be included in lapbooks or on notebooked book reports or biographies. This first set has "Author! Author!" on each booklet, in different styles. You can use them as is, or print a picture of the author and past over that bit if you like. Fold it like a matchbook, then use the inside to write a brief biography or some interesting fact about the author. Simply glue into a lapbook, or glue to a book report or essay that your student has notebooked.

In the days to come, I plan to create ready-made author books that have pictures pre-printed on them for you.

**Author! Author! matchbooks**



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Notebooking Page: Alphabet Page... The Letter "F"

Fire truck!
Fiddle!
Fan!
Fig!

What do these have in common? The letter "f", of course! Here is the next in the alphabet series of pages, the letter "f":

**The Letter "F" - Half-Inch Primary Page**

**The Letter "F" - Three-Quarter Inch Primary Page**

**The Letter "F" - One Inch Primary Page**

Welcome, Heart of the Matter Conference attendees!

Welcome, everyone! I hope you have a wonderful time at the Conference. I am so looking forward to all the speakers and workshops. I also look forward to sharing my site with you. If you're wondering what "Notebook Learning" is all about, just pop over to the right-hand side and browse through the categories. Or if you're in a hurry, you can download a sampler file right here that contains 20 different pages in different sizes, about different topics.

Don't forget that our conference page has some coupon codes, so if you see anything in the store that you like, just pop on over and take care of that! The store also has a $1 special sampler file with 100 pages covering 35 different topics and events. This special sampler will only be up through the end of August, so don't miss out!

During the school year, we strive to have a new page up every weekday. If you don't want to miss out, you have two options: 1) You can subscribe in a feed reader - you'll find that link on the right-hand side or 2) You can also subscribe to our weekly newsletter - the link to that is also on the right-hand side. Newsletter members also occasionally receive exclusive pages that are never put up for free on the main site.

If you have any questions, you can email me (button on the right-hand side), leave me a comment on this post, or during the Conference time, you can reach me through Google Talk chat, by using emeleel (at) gmail.

Also, this week happens to be Bloggy Giveaways Carnival week, so if you scroll down to this post and leave me a comment, you can be entered in a drawing to win a full notebooking set of your own. Good luck to all of you!

Notebooking/Lapbooking elements - 3 types of nomads

Did you know that there are actually three types of nomads? I'd never really thought about it until I looked it up last week for our Ancient History study. You can find out about the three types here at Wikipedia. Then, you can lapbook or notebook about them with your kids! This is a two-page file. The first page is a set of three minit books which can be printed and filled ouout inside with definitions and examples of each type of nomad. The second page is set up to glue the books to if you wish to include them in a notebook. For best results you may want to use paper that's a little heavier than standard printer paper, or even a piece of card stock.

**Three types of nomads - lapbook/notebook minit books**