Famous People Who Kept Journals

Many famous people who kept journals were trained to think critically through writing in a notebook. Is notebooking right for your child? Find out!

The Reason We Notebook

When I was in school, I hated worksheets. Hated them. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy learning, or that I had a terrible work habit. No, I just found them mind-numbingly boring, repetitious and lacking in creativity.

I can remember — at the age of 7 — telling my mom, “These are busy-work. There is no other function for these. I should be reading a book!” (I’ve always been opinionated.)

When we decided to homeschool, I knew I wanted to avoid worksheets. After all, why subject my kids to something I resented so much?

But… writing about a subject increases retention. It helps us think through what we’ve read and process our thoughts.

That’s one of the reasons I included a notebooking section in the Bible Road Trip™ program.

Bible Road Trip™ Teach Your Kid the Bible

I decided we would try keeping notebooks on each subject. There were no mindless fill-in-the-blank spaces, and there was plenty of room for sketching, note-taking, brainstorming, and dreaming. Blank notebooks created some tension for the boys, and I found that lined pages formatted for their age level were helpful.

At first, I would read aloud for a few paragraphs, then stop and help the boys decipher what information was important enough to write about.

As they’ve aged, the boys have learned to keep their own notebooks without much input from me on what to record. One thing they still enjoy is having structured pages. That’s why I created the Bible Road Trip™ Notebooking Journals to go along with the curriculum.

Bible Road Trip™ Year One Bible Notebooking Journals

How to Notebook (and What is Notebooking?)

Notebooking Resources for Your Kids!

Bible Road Trip™ Year One Notebooking JournalsBuy Here Bible Road Trip™ Year Two Notebooking JournalsBuy Here Bible Road Trip™ Year Three Notebooking JournalsBuy Here My Timeline NotebookBuy Here My Book LogBuy Here My Field Trip and Travel JournalBuy Here My Sermon NotebookBuy Here Cobblestone Path™ Church History Research JournalsBuy Here

There are a lot of fads in education. However, notebooking has existed for a long time and been used by many successful, creative adults.

There are dozens and dozens of famous “notebookers”, but I picked just a few for your consideration:

Leonardo Da Vinci’s Journal
(Illustration: Anatomy of the Neck, Da Vinci, Public Domain)

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519)

Da Vinci was a incredible artist, mathematician, scientist, and writer. He is perhaps best known for his painting The Last Supper, as well as his journal entry displaying The Vitruvian Man. Da Vinci’s notebooks are full of findings in the fields of anatomy, optics, engineering, and hydrodynamics. In fact, he diagrammed machines akin to modern-day items such as: helicopters, airplanes, an adding machine, and a tank.

Beatrix Potter’s Journals
(Photograph: by Jack1956, CC 1.0 by Public Domain)

Beatrix Potter (1866-1943)

Potter is famous for her wonderful children’s books, like The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Her notebooking began early in life with watercolor sketches of animals and drawings of nature and archeological finds. Because she explored the reproduction of fungal spores through illustrations and research, Potter was know not just as an author and illustrator, but as a natural scientist as well.

Bible Study Tools for Kids | FREE Bible Study Resources for Your Family

Grab your FREE Bible Study Tool Kit–over 130 pages of Bible resources for your family!

Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931)

Edison invented so many items (with 1,093 patents), that it’s difficult to chose just a few. However, among his best known inventions are the incandescent light bulb, the phonograph, and the motion picture camera. An inventor’s notebook can be vital not only to keep track of thoughts and ideas, and failed or successful processes, but also to create a establish a patent claim. (Pages should be dated and signed by a witness.)

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky (1821-1881)

Dostoyevsky was a writer. His books, including Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, have been translated into more than 170 languages.

Dostoyevsky’s Journals
(Illustration: Notes for Chapter 5 of The Brothers Karamozov, Public Domain)

More Famous People Who Kept Journals

Ludwig van Beethoven
- Primary image: Beethoven, Joseph Carl Stieler, 1819/20, Public Domain
Thomas Jefferson
Nikola Tesla
John Adams
John Quincy Adams
Louisa May Alcott
Lewis Carroll
Madeline L’Engle

Notebooking is a great way for children to learn! Not only that, it’s an important creative tool that will serve them a lifetime once they learn the discipline.

Books Make Great Gifts!

Bible Resources for Your Kids

Learn More Here Learn More Here Learn More Here Learn More Here Learn More Here Learn More Here

Teach Your Kids the Bible with Bible Road Trip™

Bible Road Trip™ is a three-year Bible survey curriculum. Take your family through the Bible five times from preschool to high school.

To help you get the most out of your studies, Bible Road Trip™ has an array of coordinating weekly activities:

Researching the section of the Bible you’re studying
Reading and discussing the Bible
Memorizing Scripture
Notebooking about your studies
Praying for the nations
Suggestions for further study
Crafting about what you’ve learned
For your older students: A project to share what they’ve learned
Bible Road Trip™ also has some great tools you can use along with it, such as:
- Notebooking Journals for grades 1-9. Want a structured notebooking journal for high school? Don’t hesitate to use the Dialectic journal (grades 7-9).
- Bible Memory Card Sets for all five levels of study, preschool to high school. These are available in both ESV and KJV.

Grab your Bible Road Trip™ Year One Sample Pack. You’ll get:

The Bible Road Trip™ Parent / Teacher Guide.
The first three weeks of the curriculum for all five learning levels. Week Three is where we really dive into the Bible and begin to our systematic study. Week Three will give you a good feel for the rest of the curriculum.
The first three weeks of the Bible Memory Card sets for all five levels, in ESV and KJV.
The first three weeks of each of the three leveled Notebooking Journals.

Grab the Sample Pack for FREE: