Homeschoolers, scrapbookers, Sunday school teachers, and public school teachers all use various terms to explain portfolios and projects. I created this page to clarify, the terms used on this site and in Heart of Wisdom publications.
Scrapbooking
Traditional scrapbooking is the practice of combining photos, memorabilia and stories in a scrapbook-style album. Scrapbooking is the fastest growing craft industry in the U.S. today. A scrapbook is an organized collection of clippings, notes, pictures and other things. The materials can be placed in a purchased scrapbook album, three-ring binder or a handmade book.
Scrapbooking to Learn
Scrapbooking to Learn™ is the process of making scrapbook supplies available to your students as they create their notebook pages or folders.
Scrapbooking to Learn Folders
A Scrapbooking Folder™ is a shutterfolded file folder (found at office supply stores) or poster board filled with booklets (described below). Using this system students decorate and fill the file folders. Students create booklets for each lesson in a unit. At the end of each unit, the booklets are glued to the inside of a decorated folder. You may have heard these called shutter books, pocket books, Scrapbook Folders, graphic organizers, desktop projects, lapbooks™ (the term Lapbook is trademarked by Tobinslab.com) and other various names. Click here for scrapbooking folder directions.
Scrapbooking to Learn Pages
Scrapbooking to learn pages are pages created with scrapbooking techniques combined with Charlotte Mason's copy methods for a great display or addition to your notebook or unit study portfolio. Click here for scrapbooking pages directions.
Booklets
Booklets on this site are the mini projects that go inside the folder. Booklets refer to various papers folded to create accordion books, flip-up books, fold-outs, shape books, question and answer books, pocket books, pop-up books, vocabulary books, half-folds, layered books, etc. Directions for the booklets are illustrated and explained in Dinah Zike’s Big Book of Books and Activities. Booklets for Scrapbook Folders are created during a unit study and combined after the study. Click here for Scrapbooking to Learn Folder Directions.
Notebooking
Notebooking is a term used by homeschoolers (notebooks are often referred to interchangeably with portfolios) explaining the way students collect information, as they plan, develop, classify, categorize, construct, and organize a project for display. Heart of Wisdom lessons have always encouraged homeschoolers to include scrapbook pages in the notebooks.
Notebooks are focused on the areas of the child’s interests instead of school subjects. School subjects are blended into a theme, in context, so they make sense. Subjects are taught as part of the topic, without the child noticing, resulting in a lifestyle of learning. Only finished work should go into the portfolios. This work should be complete, including all corrections, rewrites, and other improvements. This work will demonstrate correct grammar, punctuation, spelling, and vocabulary usage. Drafts go into a drafts notebook and complete projects go into the Bible or unit study notebook. Click here for Notebook Instructions.
Time Line Book
In her writings, Charlotte Mason recommended preparing a handmade Time Line Book (originally called a Museum Sketch Book; sometimes called a Book of the Centuries). This activity is based upon one of the major keys to motivation: the active involvement of students in their own learning. Students learn by doing, making, writing, designing, creating, and solving. Creating this Time Line Book is a marvelous way for students to not only be actively involved but to “pull it all together” and grasp the flow of biblical and historical events. Heart of Wisdom lessons have always encouraged homeschoolers to include scrapbook pages in their Time Line Books. Click here for Time Line Book instructions.
Portfolio
A portfolio is a portable case for holding material such as loose papers, photographs, or drawings. In the public school system portfolios usually contain a student's best work and the student's evaluation of their work. The laws in some states require homeschoolers to keep some type of portfolio. Whether your state requires them or not, portfolios become wonderful educational keepsakes that you and your children will treasure.
The Difference Between Notebooking and Scrapbooking to Learn Folders
Notebooking is done in a 3-ring binder that consists of larger amounts of text created by older students. Students can decorate the pages with scrapbooking methods.
Scrapbooking to Learn Folders are shorter amounts of text in illustrated booklets beneficial to younger students or artistic students that do better with creative hands-on work. Scrapbooking methods can be used with both methods.
