Using Ordinary Notebook Paper Day 1: Whys & Supplies

Welcome to iHN's Hopscotch at Blog, She Wrote! My topic for the 10 day series is Ten Ways to Use Ordinary Notebook Paper. Thank you for joining me. Please take a moment to subscribe, so you don't miss out- you can follow, subscribe by email or RSS feed (just look to the right!) and follow Blog, She Wrote on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest. I'd love it if you'd stay connected and visit again!

With so many wonderful notebooking products out there including notebooking and lapbooking pages, whole websites dedicated to providing pages for homeschoolers both free and for purchase, why would I focus on plain loose leaf paper? I have a few reasons:

• It's less expensive. The paper costs less, it doesn't require printer ink, and there's no payments required to subscription notebooking sites or purchases of single packets of notebooking pages. It only requires one of a couple of styles of paper packs sold for pennies in August. 
• It takes less time. Any activity that takes you longer to prepare than it will take your kids to do is an unwise use of time with rare exception! So, if creating them takes forever or finding them does, then consider a sheet of notebook paper.
• It increases the requirement of note taking and creativity for students. They own the material more as they choose how to record it.
• It's easier to modify. Whether it's for a special needs child or a young child, it's quick and easy to make a notebook sheet on notebook paper.
• It's authentic. As kids get older, less is modeled for them and they need to be able to make something out of nothing on a notebook page. Lab notebooks are one example. Recording scientific observations in college and in the field isn't done with prescribed pages.

So, what are the supplies you need?

Loose leaf paper which can be found in college or wide ruled sizes- I use wide ruled for the most part with younger kids and college ruled for older ones. As a rule, I prefer college ruled for my own use. My favorite is the Staples brand which has a lovely smooth finish and you can get 8.5 x 11 size in the college ruled variety.

ProClick Binder- (pictured above) and for sale through Amazon. This tool puts holes in the paper so that you can use the bindings to hold the paper together. The magic of the bindings is that they can be clicked and unclicked so you can add to the spiral notebook you make. These store easier than three-ring binders and are very versatile.

Three Ring binders- these are also a staple and we use them for many subjects especially while we build our notebooks. 

What can you expect from my series?

Each day I will share how we use plain notebook paper in different ways in our homeschool. It'll give you a nice window into our homeschooling days with examples of how we use loose leaf/notebook paper in all of our subjects.

I'll explain how I modify the pages for young or special needs students while still using the plain page. I'll show you how I use it with any assignment big or small.

I hope you will enjoy this series. It's not highly philosophical, but it'll give you lots of practical ideas. Thanks for joining me!
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Please visit the other bloggers participating in iHN's Hopscotch over the next two weeks. While you are taking a look at the other Hopscotchers, check out the Pin It to Win It giveaways sponsored by Prufrock Press.
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