From Drawing Notebooks to "My Page"

The older my first few children became, the more often the littler ones wanted to follow in their footsteps and do what the big ones were doing.  This meant it became more and more difficult to have the little children stay occuppied while older ones did school, or I was trying to work on something.   A couple of the little boys really enjoy drawing so they were content to sit for a while drawing (very good) pictures, but they were using way too expensive computer paper to do so.  My husband thought if we bought them their own pack, (they were given a limit of the number of sheets they could use in a day), this might solve the problem of the disapearing paper.   WELL...that was not the answer.

I was buying the metal bound spiral notebooks at the time, (by the dozens during the back-to-school sales), so I decided they could each have one of the spiral notebooks for their drawing, hence the birth of the "drawing notebook".  This was much cheaper than the previous option, but they still used many sheets at a time drawing about the same thing over and over again.  Because this was working for the time being, we did things this way for a couple of years.  This idea was really helpful when the oldest of these boys moved on to school lessons and a younger sister moved up into the " I want to, too" category.  She and the other brother would work in the drawing notebook while the older one did his lessons.  When these 'little lambs' would use their drawing notebooks, sometimes they would take a pen or pencil and just make marks, (squiggles, circles or lines), within the printed lines of the page, as well as drawing.    They were "writing a story", they said.  But I still wound up with a notebook full of "stuff" that made its way into the trash.

When I found 'notebooking' as a method of schooling and the ideas started to germinate for how to use this with my pre-schoolers, one of the first ideas I had was for "my page".

The concept of "my page" is to take the penchant these little ones have for drawing and writing, and give them a page where they can do these things and make it part of their 'for keeps' notebook.  As I began doing this with my pre-schoolers, interspersing the "my page" with other activity/lesson pages, I have found they are more creative with their drawing and they are more satisfied with having "done, too".  I have also found this refines their motor skills quickly so that when they begin letter writing practice they actually do better with 1/2" lines than the wider ones.  And because these are "theirs", the sky is the limit for the creative use of these pages.  Here's a list of some of the ways these have been used: drawing, story writing, rubber stamping and tracing stencils.  And I know there are plenty we haven't discovered yet!

I consider these pages to be a great way to explore the children's creativity, within boundaries.  It's been a great stress reliever! and paper reducer! =)  Hope the idea helps you, too!

NEXT WEEK:  The Treasure Box

God Bless!