Interactive Notebooks

I have  been looking at other teacher blogs and considering the Interactive Notebook. Here are just a few......
Everybody is a Genius

All Students can Shine

Bright Concepts 4 Teachers
It seems to be the thing now a days!  My groups have very mixed skills and these notebooks look like a great way to individualize as well.

I think what really helped me understand their purpose was when All Students can Shine said students were building their own text book. I finally got it!

There are basically two ways to set them up, use a spiral type notebook or a binder. Also some teachers use a composition notebook instead of the spiral because the wires can be a pain in the backside. I went with the binder idea, I love binders...they are awesome, help me organize stuff and I want to teach my kids how to organize independently.

Of course, I checked out Pinterest and started a board! There are millions of ideas there!

After searching on Teachers Pay Teachers I decided on Lori Vine's Reading Notebook. Lori is from Conversations in Literacy and she has a lot of great ideas.

I decided to stick with reading and writing. I also wanted the students to build their own notebook so maybe they could better understand how it is organized. I gave them each section and provided a short description of what it was for. Each section is also color coded, so when I said, "This goes in your word work section", I also would add "the purple section".

So here are some pictures of what we are doing with our Interactive Notebooks!

 

The envelope is for those pieces that have been cut out and we ran out of time to glue down.  Thank you again All Students Can Shine!

 

This one is my own creation. You can get it free here.

 

This sort is from "Words Their Way". The chart is with Lori's Interactive Notebook packet.

 

I created this one also. They like the flap!

Lori included sound boxes in her packet and the kids love to work on them! They asked if we can do it everyday! They are in plastic sleeves so they can write and erase easily.

This is from Lori's packet too!

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The word wheels adapted to the notebook.

 

 

We made pocket pages for the booklets with our reading program.

 

 

I thought this would be so fun and appealing, but honestly the kids weren't that impressed. You just never know!

I plan to use this strategy next year, with some more thought and planning going into it and depending on the needs of my students. Each school year brings new challenges!

What have you done with INBs? Feel free to leave a comment with a link!

Later,

Paula