I was upstairs in my office writing this morning, when Jack texted me: You need a new blog post!
She’s probably my biggest fan.
So here you are, love. The one I’ve had on the burner for a while, but as you well know, we’ve been far too busy being outside. Swimming, camping, wandering, visiting friends, exploring trails and spending hours at city spray parks, when I get to sit and read for hours at a time while the kids frolic in the blissfully cold water and busy themselves with building rivers and dams and friendships.
What do I always pack whenever we leave the house for one of these aforementioned destinations?
Our notebooks.
Hawk has one, Esmé has one, and I have several. I have one for sketching, one for think-y thoughts, and one for writing. I don’t usually bring them all, just the one that I feel most drawn to on any given day.
Esmé has had a small purple Moleskine notebook that she’s been working in since 2012. Not long ago, she found the last blank page and used it to draw the scales of the shedded snakeskin she was looking at under the microscope.
“There are no more pages, Mama.” She turned the pages, looking to see if this was actually true.
“It’s full?” I asked.
“Yup.” Satisfied that she’d searched thoroughly, her eyes brightened. ”That means that I get to start a new one!”
She chose one with blank pages, but that has a lined guide to slip under the page to use whenever you want lines. It also has a table of contents, which she’s particularly excited to fill out as the journal takes shape.
On page one, a rainbow.
On page two, a sheep.
On page three, notes about staphylococcus aureus.
On page four, notes about Louis Pasteur.
I imagine that she’ll fill this one much quicker.
Esmé uses her notebooks like I use mine; to gather ideas, sketch, do observational drawing, record research, jot story ideas down so they don’t slip away. I see the kids’ notebooks as a way to archive the work they do, and the projects they dive into. When it’s time to put together portfolios for apprenticeships or university, I’ll be pulling out these notebooks.
Documenting is a key piece for me as a homeschooling mama. It’s a way that I can see how my kids’ learning takes shape, and in my own notebooks, I jot down their inquiries and statements about what they want to research and look into.
Esmé spent some time going through her old notebook, something that she hadn’t really done before. She hadn’t remembered that she offered ice cream as a reward for anyone who found it if it got lost. When I asked her to point out her favourite pages, she picked pages that I knew she’d pick, and others that surprised me.
I remember the day that she started that little purple notebook. We were in the park, collecting ladybug larva, two and a half years ago. She has grown so much since then, and her interests have grown too, although I can still see my just three-year-old in my now five-year-old, and I can see the same interests too, even though they have grown and changed as well.
