Notebooks are a wonderful way to keep track of science, language arts, history, creative writing, and other assignments. It keeps things neat and tidy, and there aren’t loose papers all over the place. I quickly discovered that having one big three-ring binder filled with notebook paper and dividers just didn’t work out well. The papers often tore out and they were heavy and clumsy for my kids to use.
Instead, by purchasing color-coded notebooks and writing each child’s name on the front with a big permanent ink marker, it kept things more organized. My kids didn’t feel as overwhelmed as they did before when having to drag out that five-pound binder. We used one color for each subject: Red for history, purple for language arts, yellow for creative writing, and green for science.
I also bought each one of my girls a notebook to use as an art journal. You can get these spiral bound notebooks at any craft or art supply store such as Michael’s. The pages are thick and unlined. Each week we would focus on one artist and his or her life and works. Some of our favorite books to use were:
Discovering Great Artists: Hands-On Activities
Secret Lives of Great Artists
What I would do is have the kids read about a great artist on Monday and we would go online to look at some of their masterpieces. Tuesday they would write a report of the artist in their Art Journal, much like the Charlotte Mason method recommends. They didn’t have to write anything word-for-word or keep it dry or boring. Instead, I urged them to write about interesting things they learned about the artist, funny happenings in their lives, tragedies, their pets, or whatever each one of my children remembered most.
On Wednesday we would choose a project then go out and buy any materials necessary. Usually we had everything we needed at home and we did try to stick with sketching, pastels, watercolors, and acrylics. We quickly found out that oil painting needed to be omitted from our home until the kids were older.
Thursday and Friday would be the days my children would work on their art project. They could either copy something one of these great masters created, or tackle their own project using the artist’s style such as impressionism or cubism.
By keeping this art journal, by the end of the school year each child ended up with a very thick notebook filled with information on some of the world’s greatest artists in history, along with their own renditions of famous masterpieces.