Our Interactive Notebook, part 1

Now that my classes have had several chapters under their belts, I felt it was time to reflect on our most important organizational element in our classroom:   

THE INTERACTIVE NOTEBOOK.  

We've gotten into a fairly good routine both in how our class runs and what the expectation is for the layout of our interactive notebook, or INB, throughout the chapter.  It also has helped me in both communicating to students and parents as well as modeling study strategies that (hopefully) the kids will carry with them into high school.  Of course, many of our topics are of a Pre-Algebra nature, so if they literally carry these notebooks with them into ninth grade it could significantly help them in their Algebra class.  It also was a great piece of evidence for Parent-Teacher Conferences as well as accommodations for IEPs and 504s.  It's a WIN-WIN for everyone!!!

We are using the Big Ideas Math textbook series, a new one for our district this year.   The chapters follow the same type of structure, a student-driven activity day then a more traditional teacher-led lesson to solidify the topic they explored the previous day.  The notebook has become very helpful in grounding both types of instruction, as well as keeping the kid's material in ONE PLACE!

I required a spiral notebook in September.  Most kids brought in one similar to the one I modeled, a one-subject approximately 100 pages of regular ruled paper.  Next year, I think I'll model a 5-subject though, because we found that we ran out of space well before the end of term 2 in the smaller one.  College ruled (which I had some of as well) doesn't work well with most of the kids, as their handwriting is large (and messy...).  But many of the kids didn't realize the size of the paper rule they had.

The Cover Page

The cover page included a sticker of the business cards I had made up this summer.  They had a QR code to the homework web page as well as email contact info and office hours.  I definitely will have more of these next year, but I might just print them out myself rather than purchase them.  You can read that post HERE.  The interior title page was a graphic I found online, with other contact info and a space for the kids to CLEARLY print their name.  Another reason to have a larger spiral is to have only ONE of these... in multiple notebooks, the kids didn't put names on the inside (and then their covers ripped off...)

Inside the front cover (I forgot to circle the Marking Term... oops)

Table of Contents: the TOC

Maintaining a table of contents was stressed, but keeping up with it didn't always happen day to day as I intended.  We did find that we needed to actually assign the TOC to get it updated.  It generally consisted of the lesson topic that was in the book (ex: Activity 3.1 Lines and Angles;  Lesson 3.4 Indirect Measurement)  Each page was also to have a title, the date, and the page number (sometimes in color) in the upper corner of the page.  If this was done each day during class, it was no big-deal.  However, for some reason, the kids don't like not only doing this, but putting their names on tests, last names on ANYTHING... it's very frustrating.  I keep reminding them to autograph their paper... sometimes even HIGHLIGHT their name before turning a paper in...but I still have a pile of anonymous papers that end up ceremonially going into the trash on a regular basis.  (alas, I digress... I think this could be another topic for another day)

   Informational Papers & Flippers

In our first INB was also a prime place to put the informational papers that I usually give out within the first week of school.  These pages were shrank to half-sheets and made into 'flippers', to increase the surface area on each spiral bound page.

















Honestly, this took a while, both to distribute the pages to each group as well as modelling how to attach the papers (using my mantra:  a 'knuckle-size piece of tape')

The 'Knuckle-Size' Piece of Tape

Chapter Title

Each chapter also needed a 'starting point', so I used 4mulaFun's Unit Numbers from TeachersPayTeachers.com.  For my own organization (and sanity) I did write on my master copies, both the chapter numbers as well as the photocopy the pages in the color of the book (Big Idea's grade 8 is BLUE while the Algebra 1 is PURPLE).   Of course, that only worked when the paper was available in the teacher's room.  Something tells me that we're gonna run out soon, but then the kids can color them as they see fit.  This works great for after the chapter test, to keep them busy, quiet, and coloring can be very theraputic for some 'brain rest'.

We also had the left facing page for review material.  The textbook included items called 'What You Should Know' that typically covered standards from previous years.  This was a helpful place for these 8-12 questions.  Quick and painless.

Vocabulary Frodor Model

Yet another TpT idea that I came across last spring was the Frodor Model of vocabulary.  More interactive, and more summative, these models allow for student not only to put the definitions with the terms, but also create examples and non examples, formulas or illustrations to solidify their knowledge.  It was also VERY kinesthetic, which many of my kiddos need!  What I really didn't consider is how much focus they need to get these all cut out, glued in, and completed.


I expected by the 2nd chapter, it'd be easy.  But even now, beginning our 4th chapter, it's a struggle.  But if it's completed correctly, the data is ALL IN ONE PLACE and can be referenced and filled out throughout the chapter.  I have found that filling out some of the information BEFORE I photocopy, including which pages in the INB they go, is very helpful for our organization.




I also color code the chapter, not just the color of the book, but the color of the chapter.  Chapter 2 and 3 I tried to keep items GREEN for our Geometry topics.




Chapter 4, which is more Algebra focused is BLUE.

Chapter 4 Vocabulary - Graphing Linear Equations

In the next post, I'll show off the most functional part of our INBs, the Input/Output and how we've maximized this format for both the Activity and Lesson Days.  And in the future, some of the foldables we've created.