It's good to be reminded of encouraging and helpful ideas.

So this week, we're bringing you a reprise of one of our most popular episodes.

We hope you enjoy the best of the Simply Charlotte Mason podcast.

Welcome to the Simply Charlotte Mason podcast. I'm Sonia Shaver. Some of you have asked about

notebooking and whether that is a Charlotte Mason method. It's a good question. And the answer

all depends on what you're thinking of when you think notebooking. For some people,

notebooking is like scrapbooking. You tuck postcards

and maps and stickers and photographs and pamphlets and articles from magazines on the pages

and put them in an attractive arrangement. For some, notebooking is more of a portfolio.

You include samples or pictures from all kinds of assignments that your child has completed.

Book reports, board games, jigsaw puzzles, movie reviews, paper dolls, flattened paper

crafts, posters, diagrams, and science experiments.

For other people, notebooking is a collection of worksheet-type assignments.

So the child completes word puzzles, or does a cut-and-paste-style mini-book, or coloring pages,

or fill-in-the-blank guides, any kind of pre-printed sheet with step-by-step instructions

for the child to complete it?

But none of those descriptions of notebooking accurately reflects the notebooks that Charlotte

Mason used with her students.

Charlotte's students used notebooks in a variety of subjects.

They had a nature notebook, a book of centuries, a math notebook, and a book of mottoes,

plus notebooks for beginning reading, handwriting, and spelling.

But all of those notebooks had one thing in common.

...