Have A Budding Novelist In Your Midst? Inspire Them With Roaring Springs Composition Books
Written: Jul 05 '03 (Updated Jul 30 '06)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great for creative writing, stories or photo books.
Cons: Only 24 pages, pretty hard to find.
The Bottom Line: Roaring Spring Grade 2 Compositions is a great way to inspire creative writing, assemble photo books or for general school work.
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| Freak369's Full Review: Grade School Composition Notebooks 77903 |
I first came across the Roaring Spring Grade 2 Composition Books at my local Office Depot store in their small but well stocked school section. As soon as I saw them I know that they would be a huge hit with my boys. They have all had a love of reading from a very early age and along with that came a lot of short stories that they were inspired to write from their reading adventures. The one problem is that most of them were about five or six pages long so they weren’t exactly notebook material. Loose leaf paper would end up getting lost or torn out of a binder and all the other methods we tried for preserving their stories proved to be less than adequate. For .79 cents each picked up several of each of the different notebooks for them to try out. Without a doubt, the second and third grade ones were a huge hit and the first grade ones were met with a hearty laugh and usual comment, “those are for babies”.
Roaring Spring Grade 2 Composition Books
If you’ve never seen these, they look almost identical to the Mead Composition Books. The have the same marbled cover and black spine but instead of 100 pages, these only have 24 and are a lot thinner. This also lacks the hard cardboard cover on the front and back but since there are only 24 pages, it’s not a real necessity. The pages are thick enough for pens or pencils but markers will almost definitely bleed through to the back side of the pages. There are eight lines on each page and they are the standard format that most early learners are familiar with – the double line with center guide. The lines are blue and there are no margins on the left or right side, something that I really didn’t care for but I wasn’t the one that was using the book so my personal opinion didn’t really hold weight. Another con is that there is only a minimal amount of space at the top and bottom of the page so writing your name or numbering the pages could be an issue for some kids.
Even thought these are labeled as “grade 2” it’s best to take a peek between the covers and see if the lines are adequate for your childs writing needs. Some children need larger lines and other will feel that they are too big or ‘kids like’. For my boys, these were a great size but my oldest moved on to the Mead Composition books shortly after I picked these up. I like the fact that there aren’t any staples to deal with but I have to admit that I was a little concerned with the cotton stitching that holds the book together. I wasn’t convinced that they wouldn’t be strong enough to hold up to a lot of page flipping but they’ve all held up nicely. We had some trouble with the pages of other composition books falling out – mostly from ripping out a page from the front of the book and having the adjoining page come loose from the stitching.
There aren’t many features to the notebook but there is a spot on the front cover for a childs name, school and grade as well as an alphabet and number guide on the back cover. The book is 9 3/4 by 7 3/4 so it’s a little smaller than standard notebooks but the smaller size makes it easier for younger kids to work with and doesn’t overwhelm them. If you come across this and it isn’t exactly the size line you are looking for there is a grade one and grade three composition book available. As you might guess, the first grade has larger lines and the third grade version has smaller lines.
Uses
These can be used for schoolwork or note taking but as I mentioned, ripping out a page might make others loose. My sons used these mostly for creative writing or short stories and really liked the fact that they had plenty of pages to work with and when they were done with the story, they had their own little novel that they could show off. These can also be used for making picture or photo books or for the younger kids – their own alphabet book. Just label each of the pages with a letter and let them paste pictures on the pages. Since there are only 24 pages, a few letters will have to be combined but that never seemed to be an issue with my boys.
These also make great journals for younger kids. I wish we would have had something like this when we were traveling, instead they used regular notebooks to write about the different places we were visiting and collected things like postcards and sticker from their little travels. These notebooks were a real blast to look at as they got older and if we would have had books like this I’m sure they would have held up a little better than standard notebooks that seemed to get destroyed from being toted around all the time.
The Bottom Line
Overall, these are great composition books for kids to use for creative writing or penning their first mini novel. You can pick these up for about .79 cents a piece but the only place that I have seen them has been Office Depot and recently they’ve been out of stock when I’ve gone hunting for them. Several online office supply stores carry other Roaring Spring products but haven’t stocked these yet but hopefully when the school term gets closer they’ll update their stock and start carrying these. When I was looking on the internet to try and track these down, I noticed a lot of grade schools had this notebook on their list of required items for the school year. If your school allows you a little freedom when picking out composition books or journals, I highly suggest the Roaring Spring Composition Books for grades one through three.
www.rspaperproducts.com
[800] 441-1653
As always, thanks for the read!
^V^ Freak ^V^
© 2003 Freak369
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Recommended:
Yes
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