Jessica Fries-Gaither - Keep a Scientist Notebook

Very Exciting News Connected to This Post:

NOTABLE NOTEBOOKS: SCIENTISTS AND THEIR WRITINGS is one of two books from NSTA Press that have been selected to travel to the International Space Station (ISS) later this summer to be part of the space station’s Story Time from Space(STFS) program, a project supported by the Global Space Education Foundation and CASIS that aims to foster literacy and science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) learning.

The books—published by NSTA Kids, a division of NSTA Press—are among a small bundle of STEM-themed children’s books that will be packed aboard SpaceX-12, a cargo resupply mission to ISS, currently scheduled to launch in August. Once aboard the space station, astronauts will record videos of themselves reading the stories. The resulting videos will be available for viewing later this fall.

For updates on the launch of SpaceX-12, visit www.nsta.org/publications/press/stfs.aspx.

What makes a notebook special?

It’s a place to think and dream,

to write down thoughts and questions

about all that you have seen.

NOTABLE NOTEBOOKS: SCIENTISTS AND THEIR WRITINGS

When you think of a scientist at work, you probably think about tools she might use: test tubes, a microscope, or even a telescope. But there’s one tool that every scientist uses, no matter what topic she’s studying: a notebook.

(Click any image to enlarge)

Marie Curie’s Notebook, Wellcome Library, London [CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Scientists use notebooks to jot down questions, sketch observations, plan experiments, collect data, and write about what they’ve discovered. You can read about famous scientists throughout history and how they used notebooks in my children’s book, NOTABLE NOTEBOOKS: SCIENTISTS AND THEIR WRITINGS (NSTA Press, 2016). One of my favorite scientists from this book is Beatrix Potter. Most people think of her as an author and illustrator, but she was also an important mycologist (a scientist who studies fungi). Learn more about her and others by reading the book!

In my science classroom at Columbus School for Girls, my elementary students use notebooks every single day to draw, write, and think. Their notebooks are a safe place for them to try out new ideas and make sense of what they are studying. Some of my girls even take their notebooks out to recess to sketch the interesting things they discover on the playground.

We organize our notebooks in several different ways. First, we number all the pages and add a blank table of contents in the front. Every time we start a new lesson, we add a header to the top of the page and record it in the table of contents. It makes finding your place much easier. We also hot glue a ribbon on the inside of the back cover to use as a bookmark. Finally, we add tabs to divide our notebook into separate sections for each unit.

By the end of the year, the notebooks really tell the story of all the science learning that has happened, and my girls love to look back and see how much they’ve learned and grown. (They also often are amused by how much neater their handwriting is by the end of the year!)

While notebooks are great in science class, you can make your own at home, too. Summer is a great time to keep a science notebook! Here are two things to try:

1) Start a nature journal to take along on all your outdoor adventures. Find interesting things – rocks, insects, trees, flowers – and use your notebook to record your observations. I like to divide my page into four boxes. In one box, I write the location, date, and name of whatever I’m observing. In the second box, I describe it in words. The third box is for a sketch, and the fourth box is for a magnified, or close up, sketch. 

2) If you plant or a garden, start a garden notebook. Record what kinds of seeds you planted and when. Take notes on how each type of plant is going and maybe sketch its progress. Record the weather conditions, too. You might even glue in seed packets and take photographs to add to your notebook.

Every time you write in your notebook, you are collecting data – just like a real scientist! Happy exploring!

Jessica Fries-Gaither is the Lower School Science Specialist at Columbus School for Girls in Columbus, OH and the author of several books, including Notable Notebooks: Scientists and Their Writings (NSTA Press, 2016). She loves all things science, reading, and writing. You can connect with Jessica on her Facebook page, on Twitter at @ElemSciTchr, or by email at jfriesgaither@gmail.com. She is currently developing a personal web site, so stay tuned!

NSTA has generously offered to give away one copy of NOTABLE NOTEBOOKS: SCIENTISTS AND THEIR WRITINGS- for a reader of this post.  Please leave a comment (and a way to contact you should you win) by Friday, September 1 to be entered into this random drawing.  

Please know that Sharing Our Notebooks welcomes all kinds of notebook keepers - of any age and interest - to open up their pages and share their process.  At the present time, I am accepting all notebook entries and am especially hoping to receive some entries from boys and men who keep any kind of notebooks.  If you are interested in writing in this space, please contact me, Amy, directly.  I welcome you!

Please share a comment below if you wish.

If you are under 13 years old, please comment only with a parent 

or as part of a group with your teacher and class.

Linda Baie: I Carry Them Always

I’ve kept journals/diaries/writers notebooks/daybooks for nearly all my life. My writer’s notebooks  help capture moments in life, whether personal or professional.  I can pull out a notebook from years ago and the writing there will place me right back in that time, place, feeling.  It’s great to re-visit those good times with family and students.   In my classroom, I wanted to help my students create the habit of writing, and writers’ notebooks are how we began.

Students spent the first day of school with me mostly outdoors.  In addition to games, sharing silly and serious things about ourselves, working in groups or alone, we wrote.  I wanted them to know that writing was important in that capturing of thoughts, feelings, observations, and explorations. By the end of the year, they had filled a notebook (or more than one) to return to again and again for more ideas, to read previous thoughts compared to current thinking, and to enjoy all that they had recorded.

A first assignment began with a poem I shared that they could tape in their notebooks.  Here are a couple of photos sharing two poems used.

Click to enlarge images.

Here’s a sketch I did of students writing.

In addition to a current notebook, I keep a separate notebook that holds lessons I use for both writing and poetry.  One example is copied poems taped in as examples of figurative language.

As a teacher, I wrote with students, filling my notebooks with ideas for writing and I wrote rough drafts in them, too, just as I wanted students to do.  One idea that helped students find ideas was a “day in the life” assignment.  Our students at school also keep sketch journals, and I encouraged my students to sketch in their writers’ notebooks as well.  This “day in their lives” was to list, and occasionally sketch, the time from getting up in the morning, eating breakfast, looking out their bedroom windows, traveling to school, walking around school, going home (or to lessons or practice or friends’ houses), doing homework, watching TV, going to bed and reading, going to sleep. They created timelines in their notebooks and with each part, wrote more ideas that might be good ones for future writing-favorite foods, memories of bedtime rituals, riding in the car, watching out car windows.  I wanted them to know that everything in their lives was worth writing about.

I sketch often in my notebooks, to record ideas, to remember moments I might want to write about later.

I carry smaller notebooks with me wherever I go.  I found these at a local art store.

And now, as a literacy coach, I share notebooks or lessons about notebooks with those teachers with whom I work.

I have a new notebook begun this summer, and have been writing lots of poems.  I begin in this notebook with an idea, and mess around with it until some idea or other works, for me at least.  Lately I’ve been participating in a poetry swap and I have such beautiful flowers blooming in my garden,  I decided to write a flower poem.  I wrote many lines and nothing seemed to work.  I took pictures, sketched a little, tried to make the flowers “whisper” (I liked that line!), but I couldn’t seem to find any other “words” they might say.  I filled numerous pages with lines about flowers.

Finally, I thought I’d do some research, and looked up flower parts, thinking maybe they would help spark an idea.  I listed verbs showing actions by flowers, like “climbing, perfuming, opening” and still, nothing.  That seems to be the way of writing, sometimes ideas don’t work.  I put away my notebook until another day had passed, and did some more research.  There was a page full of common flower names, and some of them caught me!  They were names of animals, like ‘tiger lily’, and more!  I had my idea, and worked on it, moved some lines around, and wrote.

Here are some of the earlier pages I wrote.

While weeding

A special time with Black-eyed Susan, and Johnny Jump-Up too;
we held our Baby’s Breath until we arrived at the Garden Zoo!
The Dandelion roared and roared, as if he was on stage,
and next we saw Kangaroo Paw jumping around his cage.
Flying up above us was the Larkspur swift and bright
while the Dogwood barked, chasing Pussywillow down paths
                                                                              and out of sight!
Imagine our surprise when next we heard the howling of Wolfbane.
It sent a shiver down our backs; we’ll never be the same.
We ambled here and ambled there, ending our tour in love,
with the extraordinarily shapely look of quieter Foxglove.
Remember these were wildflowers at our Garden Zoo.
And we understood quite clearly, they wanted to be Freesia too.

© Linda Baie, All Rights Reserved

Sitting and messing about with words, doing research, finding new ideas is all part of using notebooks.  I carry them always, searching for new writing ideas.

I have a lot of empty notebooks, waiting to be filled.  I’ll send one of these to a winning commenter!  I’ll choose a special one, with lots of pages, ready for your own special writing!

Linda Baie is a long time teacher of middle school students at an independent school for the gifted in Denver, Colorado.  She has recently moved from the classroom and moved into the part-time position of literacy coach for the 8-14 year age group.  She has a son and son-in-law, a daughter and daughter-in-law, one grandson and two granddaughters.  Her husband is retired.  If there is any passion it is reading, writing and being outdoors.  For a long while, Linda rode horses, but has been lately too busy to take care of a horse so had to give it up.  Maybe someday she will return.  She blogs at TeacherDance.

Please comment with a way to reach you to be entered into Linda's notebook giveaway!  The winner will be announced in this space and on The Poem Farm Facebook page on Saturday, July 20.

Shirley Ng-Benitez: A Yearning to Start Again

"Draw, draw, draw, and draw some more..."

Amy June Bates, SCBWI Illustrators' Day, 2009

This was the advice that I took to heart one sunny September day after attending a SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) conference in San Francisco. I recently had discovered Ms. Bate's wonderful work, and I have drawn or sketched each day since...and it is now a part of who I am.

Since I graduated with a BS in Graphic Design and a concentration in Illustration, I had focused on my computer skills, handlettering skills, and layout and design. I would begin a project by sketching with pencil on bond paper, creating quick thumbnail ideas until a composition or solution would present itself. From there I would keep going. I worked at various design firms, but one experience in particular moved me to sketch and create faster and faster - with pencil thumbs at first and then color marker comps. To this day, this is how I think when it comes to problem solving whether it's for a logo, a book spread idea, or an illustration.

For many, many years, I had not painted a picture, nor sketched an illustration. I was afraid. It had been so long sine I had tried to sketch or illustrate anything that my confidence was very low. I felt that "putting my heart on my sleeve" by painting or creating an image was the most difficult thing I could do...and so I stayed clear of it.

After many years designing and producing work that did not require me to use pencil and paper, I had a yearning to start again. I took a much needed vacation with my husband and decided I would bring my field watercolor box to sketch some of the locations we'd be at. When a beautiful scene appeared, I took the time to paint it, and by the end of the trip, I had 6 or 7 sketches!

This encouraged me...and then one day, I came upon a site called Illustration Friday. After clicking around and discovering that anyone could contribute - novice to professional - I decided to start my blog and participate, for having a blog was the only way you could enter your work each week.

This opened up a whole new world for me, and it has been through the Internet, the blogging community, the artist community through social networks, and organizations such as SCBWI and JacketFlap, that I have gained more confidence as an illustrator and more importantly, a sense of camaraderie.

Here are my tools: a bunch of sharpened #2 Ticonderoga pencils, and a clipboard with plain white bond paper. Each night I sketch something, anything...words, a letterform, a face...anything. Every so often, I manage to sketch a whole sheet or two, depending on how tired I am. I sketch every night before I go to bed, and sometimes when I'm in crunch mode, I work with the same tools at my desk, sketching and refining throughout the day.

I keep my clipboard and the stack o'pencils on my nightstand, along with lots of children's books below. I really must get better organized, but with my kids who also enjoy reaidng, I find that piles right by my bed are quite handy for all of us. Here are many sheets of many nights' worth of sketching. Some of these became final watercolor illustrations.

Last year I participated in The Sketchbook Project - which I loved! We paid for a sketchbook which was sent to us to fill by a certain deadline, and it was then catalogued and went "on tour" throughout many major cities within the US. I had never worked within the size of a sketchbook before, and I found it challenging but then enjoyable. The sheets were thin, so I used pencil on all of the pages and really got into the swing of things over the few months that I had the sketchbook on hand.

Here are images of the sketchbook which is now housed at the Brooklyn Art Library. I had a lot of fun filling the book, and I would highly recommend the challenge as it is a community truly based in creativity and good will.

Here's to drawing and sketching!
Shirley

Many thanks to Amy for this great concept of sharing notebooks, and for allowing me to contribute!

Shirley Ng-Benitez is an illustrator, graphic designer, and handlettering artist working in the Bay Area, California. She has worked for American Greetings, Inc., as a professional lettering artist, and for various design firms throughout the Bay Area before starting her design firm, Gabby & Company. She primarily works in watercolors for the children's illustration market. Her recent books include THE MAGIC BEHIND THE SCREEN, authored by Charles Ghigna as well as two digital books via the iTunes uTales application, LAUNCH! written and illustrated by Shirley, and THE GINGERBREAD MAN, illustrated by Shirley. To see what She's recently been up to, visit Shirley's blog, where she still participates in Illustration Friday.