Guide to Using Interactive Student Notebooks in ANY Classroom.
This guide will help any teacher begin using interactive student notebooks in their classroom immediately. Don't put it off another year…
Interactive Student Notebook Bootcamp
Left, left – left, right, left. FORWARD MARCH! Let's get down and dirty with our INB PREP! Now, who's with me? Ultimately, can you really figure out how to handle the chaos? Well, my advice it to dive right in. LITERALLY. I often have my teacher students ask, “Did you practice before you got started?” No way! How do you practice for the big game? Do you have a trial run? The best tip I can give you is to get all of your ducks in a row, prepare as much as you can, and step up to bat. First things first, let's just get into the supplies.
Supply List
You've probably heard how important notebooks are for Interactive Student Notebooks, and this is so true. I do beg you to listen to this next statement – If your students do not have a composition book like the one featured, have no fear, this can still work. When teachers get really worked up about certain rules, it stresses the students out. It's an interactive student notebook for crying outloud. Basically, if it has paper, it will suffice. Students who use spiral bound interactive student notebooks, work just fine. Please remind them the importance of taking care of their work. Composition books just help secure the longevity of the notebook. Also, remind students using their composition books to never ever ever ever ever tear a page from it. In addition, it will disturb the binding, and ultimately make their notebook fall apart. True story. One more piece of advice – the first day of school I tell my students “HARD WORK PAYS OFF.” Plus, I pay one student $20.00 at the end of the year for the best INB. They love it.
I think this one is pretty self explanatory. They need crayons – mmmk?
Glue day.
Hello students, today is glue day. Let's forget Common Core, tests, and comprehensive learning. Today we are going to learn how to glue. CHHEEEER SCREEAAMMMS! YAAAAAY! No, seriously. If you don't have a day for gluing you will revisit this day every day. No, thank you! I hire a “Baby B B Patrol Team.” These guys are my finest gluers. They inspect what they expect. They make sure we have no wavy pages, and that everyone is adding JUST enough glue. Hate glue?
Tape Day
I found the solution and it is tape because it can crease. Tape that can make taking notes easy. It can save your life, and your time. That's my new motto. I have officially gone totally tape. TEAM TOTALLY TAPE. My sixth and 8th graders can't glue. To put it lightly, they are wonderful at learning complex things, but they totally can't glue without making a big mess. So I hired a Tape Team. We fired our Baby B B Patrol, and now TEAM TAPE leads our foldable progress.
Prepare your work station.
This is very subjective. How do you want your work station to look? Do you want boxes for each student, or would you rather have “caboodles.” Um, is caboodle a real word??? Use these for your work stations by numbering them 1-26 and place them under the desk on our desk rack. Each student from every class has that one box only. It's their responsibility.
Inside, we have all of the supplies featured above, and these beauties.
For cutting – duh.
We use rulers to help fold our foldables more precisely.
So, maybe I have a problem with students getting up during a lesson. Okay, I have a big problem. So, in order to cut down on distractions, students can sharpen their colored pencils from their desk.
We use index cards to make sure our supplies stay up to par. Each student must sign their index card at the end of class with all of their supplies, If they are in need of something, before they sign off, I ask them to ask me for it. 🙂 It works for us.
In fact, I use these to house all of our interactive student notebooks and have one bin per class. As a result, this is the best and neatest way to make sure these babies stay clean and durable. However, my students must ask to check out a notebook if they'd like to take it home.
6X9 envelopes. Hellllurrrr??? Additionally, glue these bad boys to the front flap of their interactive student notebooks,. If we don't finish an activity, the students place their pieces in the envelope. It's magical. In other words, no more pieces left all over my floor. Can I get an AMEN???
Trash.
Although I'm not sure if you're a clean freak like me, but if you are – it's okay. Next, take some deep breaths. While you are teaching, it's okay for your students to have a little F-U-N. We play “free throw” time during class. In addition, each student gets two free throw shots at our trashcans all over the room. If they miss, don't worry – but don't let them get up. That can be a circus. Instead, hire yourself out a team of helpers. Give these students incentives for cleaning up after their interactive student notebooks,like tickets or song request options.
In summary of interactive student notebooks
As always, thanks for sticking with me on this super lengthy blog post. For your time, and hopefully for a little fun, I have created an interactive student notebooks, freebie cover! Finally, what I love to do is print these out, laminate and hot glue them to their INBS! I hope you enjoy!
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I just listened to 5 of your YouTube videos today and now I am a follower! You rock and you're hilarious too! Keep creating…you are one talented chick.
Love interactive notebooks too! Fab tips…especially hot glueing an envelope inside. A great take away!
Tricia from Tricia's Terrific Teaching Trinkets
Glue is dead now!! LOL! Great post!
Thank you for the freebie! Keep the funny and informative posts coming sister!
Glue Who? lol. great post…thank you!
Hi 🙂
I am a teacher from Norway, and I’m interested in starting an interactive notebook with my students when they start a new school year. This is not a “thing” in Norway, but I love the idea. I was wondering, how do the students use the tape? Do they use double sided tape? Can you show it in a video or in a blogpost?
Hi, Kayse! I have heard SO much about how effective interactive notebooks can be,! As a first-year 6th grade L.A. teacher, I am excited to use them in our classroom! I had a quick question– how often do you work in the interactive notebooks? Daily? Weekly?
Thanks for the great resources!
I dabbled with interactive notebooking this year and am jumping all in next year. I am putting tape on the supply list for kids to bring from home and I’ll collect it on day 1. How many rolls of tape would you say you use per kid?
Kayse, I LOVE your interactive notebook ideas! I just viewed my first video of yours today, and thought it was terrific! Would you happen to have anything for the upper grades, specifically in English and Modern World History?
Hi Kayse! Love all of your material. I have been watching your videos and I find them very informative. I am a newbie to the TPT thing and had some questions. Do you have an email address where I could email you? You are welcome to email me directly if you wish not to publish the address.
Thanks!
Katie
klbb@live.com
I hope this post gave you more insight on how you might use interactive notebooks with your students, whether it be in the form of individual lessons through a semester, or as one big unit to assess individual student skills.
What not to do with interactive notebooks in the classroom, as you set them up, figure out printables, and use them throughout the school year.