What is an Interactive Notebook?

I have to admit that I have not read any books, nor done any real research into Interactive Notebooks. After joining Pinterest, and finding myself inspired by so many of other teachers' Pins, I started to notice a theme among a number of Pins I had repinned, and that was Interactive Notebooking. I started to follow a few blogs of teachers who do them, and I downloaded a few freebies on TeachersPayTeachers (TpT). That's all the research I have done. Anyway, I have started my own in my classroom, and though I've done no real research, I will attempt to answer the question, "What is an Interactive Notebook?" based on what I have decided to do with my own.

Our Interactive Notebooks are a 3-ring binder with tabs for Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies, and ELD. About once to three times a week, I will have students add an entry to their notebooks. The format is very specific. All of the right side pages (odd-numbered) are for Teacher Input - this is where I give them notes, draw diagrams, have them glue in handouts, or make a foldable with them. In my class, I will use this for the Input of a brand new big idea/concept or as a review of a big idea/concept. All of the left side pages (even-numbered) are for Students Input - this is where students write in their own words what they think they will learn, what they already know, what they have learned, proof of what they have learned, and a personal and creative reflection on the lesson. This side (the left side) is why I really wanted to start doing the notebooks. It allows for so much metacognition and for students to be writing a lot (especially in the content areas). In addition to the entries, students keep an updated Table of Contents at the front of each tab, and are constantly aware of the notebook rubric, which I will be using to grade their entries and the entire notebook. The whole notebook thus serves as a place for notes to use as a reference in class and for studying. It also serves as a platform for students to reflect on their own learning and interact with it creatively. It also serves as an ongoing portfolio of student work, learning, and thought. It also serves as a journal of student writing. I love that it does so much! That is why I am doing it! I hope this makes sense. Send me a comment or question if you have one!!

The Olympics

One of my goals this year is to incorporate more in depth study into current events. Well, one of the most exciting things coming up this month is the Summer Olympics in London. I figured since we are a year-round school, it would be great to expose my kids to this fun and historical event. Plus, it would provide numerous learning opportunities. I started by introducing a project for my students to work on with a partner. Each group could choose whether they wanted to research Olympic events, Olympic history, or London. Many of the groups chose London, but a few chose the others. So far, they have done some internet research into their topic of choice, taken notes, and crafted a paragraph summarizing their findings. They are currently in the stage of editing and revising their paragraphs. They will then type their summaries and place onto a photo using YouAreYourWords.com, which is a really cool site I found out about on Pinterest. I will definitely upload pictures when it's complete. Ok, so in addition to their Internet research and Web 2.0 published summaries, they will add some sort of visual or kinesthetic application of their findings into to present along with an oral reading of their work. To supplement this project with some daily culturally-relevant literature and comprehension activities, I have been doing different Teacher Read Alouds with class discussions and writing responses to literature. So far, we have read The Magic Tree House: Hour of the Olympics by Mary Pope Osbourne, Wilma Unlimited by Kathleen Krull, and How to Train with a T-Rex and Win 8 Gold Medals by Michael Phelps. We will be reading the Fact Tracker that goes with the Magic Tree House book as well as some other nonfiction selections about Modern Olympics history. Also, next week, we will be doing daily Time For Kids readings of news articles online in order to follow what is happening in London. My kids are loving this unit, and I really feel they are becoming better readers, writers, and researchers in the process. Oh yeah, and to specifically hit on some of the GATE icons and universal concepts, we have had some great discussions and writing about the structure of ancient Olympic events compared to the modern Olympics, as well as on the ethics and fairness of past rules involving the participation, or lack thereof, of women in the Olympics. We are all having fun! Stay tuned for pictures of how it all turns out.

Prepositions and Interactive Notebooking

I have been using Easy Grammar for two years now. I mainly like the structure of the curriculum as it introduces prepositions first in order to aide students into simplifying sentences by removing prepositional phrases. When kids can do this, it leaves the simplified sentence easier to dissect in order to go into depth with studying nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. So, I have been teaching prepositions for the past couple weeks.

I also have ventured into trying to create interactive notebooks this year for students to have 1) a notebook they can reference throughout the year, 2) a portfolio to show parents and administrators of student work, and 3) a way for students to be reflecting and writing more about their own thinking and learning. So, with a lot of inspiration from other teacher blogs I follow, some freebies I found on TeachersPayTeachers.com, and Pinterest, I created a plan to structure our Interactive Journals. I still have a lot to develop, but I am really proud of the first entry we did on Prepositions, and I really think the kids enjoyed it and got a lot out of it. Now, I know that the entries are supposed to be for input, but my first entries will be review lessons instead if input lessons. I am actually interested to compare them later with input lessons. Anyway, I will post some pictures of the Prepositions entry in our Interactive Journal under the tab Language Arts (we made tabs in a binder for Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies, and ELD). I will also do another blog entry later where I discuss more about what an Interactive Notebook is and how I have set mine up.

Venturing into the World of Blogging

I have been wanting to start a class blog for a few years now, but haven't had the guts to really try it out. However, I'm going to just jump on into this world of blogging and see what comes of it! I have tons of ideas, but I'm not really sure how to organize them all, and I honestly don't know how I can do ALL of them, but I figure I won't know until I try. So I am going to start by blogging about some of the activities I will be doing with my students this year and then hopefully will slowly start to add student writing. My goal will be to eventually have the kids blogging on their own! So, here goes!