Your Guide to using
Interactive Notebooks
Essential Question:
• How do I use interactive notebooks to engage students and maximize learning in my classroom?
What are Interactive Notebooks?
• Notebooks are a highly individualized way for students to interact with:
• The content/concepts being learning• Themselves and their thinking• The teacher
The Process…
• Can be challenging• Takes a bit of patience• Requires modeling, modeling,
modeling• Must consistently be reinforced• Learning curve for both the teacher
and the students
The Payoff…
• Students are able to organize their work
• Uses reading strategies within a content area, such as science, social studies or math
• Helps students (& teachers) distinguish between what they know and what needs more attention
Why Interactive Notebooks?• The format is engaging to multiple
learning styles: • Visual, kinesthetic, linguistic, and more
• Encourages application of writing strategies in variety of contexts
• Facilitates higher order thinking and collaboration
Benefits over time…
• Notebooks become a portfolio on individual learning and a record of each student’s growth.
• Teachers, students, and parents can review a student’s progress in writing, recording, thinking, and organization skills.
How is the Notebook assessed?• There are multiple assessment options:• Formatively
• Progress monitoring daily/weekly/spot check• Provide commentary about a concept or
written response • Summatively using a rubric• Individual assignments basis• Selected sections assessed for
conventions
No one “Right” way!• Just like writing a story…there are
any number of procedures, techniques, components, and elements to use when creating interactive notebooks with your students.
• They should be a reflection of your classroom and style of teaching & learning
How Do I Get Started?• At least one month in advance,
identify a subject and concept with which to begin
• As you plan your upcoming unit of study, create a model interactive notebook your would like your students to create.
• Identify necessary concepts, materials, and procedures you are going to use.
What Students Need…
• The notebook-loose leaf paper in a three pronged folder, spiral notebook, or composition book
• Pencils, crayons, markers• Glue stick or tape• Scissors• Paper, graphic organizers,
assessments, etc… • Grading expectations
Notebook Components:• Personalized Unit
Title Page• Table of Contents• Standards• Unit EQ’s• Vocabulary Activities• Graphic Organizers• Foldables• The list goes on…
Each student’s notebook should be unique! They may
have similar assignments, but they
should “LOOK” different! Say “No!”
to cookie cutter notebooks!
Let’s Get Started!
Basic Notebook Set Up
• Create Front & Back Cover Pockets• Personalized Title Page• Number all the pages in the book • Create a Book Table of Contents• Then separate Table of Contents for each
section
• Give students standards or “Student Friendly Versions” of the standards
• Unpack these standards.• Three samples:• Nouns & Verbs• Pictures• Visual Sentences
GPS Standards
Foldables
• Multi-Door Foldable • Select vocabulary words from your
1st 9 weeks GPS• ¾ Fold Book
• http://cicobb.typepad.com/es/reading-strategies-for-science.html
• 3 Tab Foldable• Post-It Variation
Multi-Tab Shutter Foldable
MatchbookFoldables
2 Tab Matchbook Foldable
T-Chart Foldable
Envelope Foldable
Buzz Review Game
Word Trails p. 43“Seldom do words stand alone, isolated from
and unrelated to other words.”• Introduce a new word then build “trails” and
connections from other words to the new word. • There are five main trials that connect words.
Critical Incident Journal p. 91 Writing Strategies• Prior to beginning a science lesson (hands-on),
explain that students should look out for a critical incident throughout the course of the lesson.
• Here are some questions to consider:• What is the significant event you would like to write
about in your journal?• Why is this event important to you?• What was your favorite or least favorite part of the
lesson today?• Describe the event. What happened?• What did you learn from this experience?• How does this fit in with what you are learning in
science class?For grades K-1 – Invite students to draw and label their critical
incidents and display their drawings on the science board.
Twitter Posts• Can be used as a Ticket-Out-the-Door• Summarize what you learned in this
session. What are the strategies or information you are going to try?
V O C A B U L A R Y K N OW L E D G E I S M O R E
C O M P L I C A T E D TH A N R E C I T I N G KE Y T E R M S A N D T HI E R D E F I N I T I O NS . S T U D E N T S N EE D O P P O R T U N I T IE S T O I N T E R A C TW I T H W O R D S .
Vocabulary knowledge is more complicated than reciting key terms and their definitions. Students need opportunities to interact with words.
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