Interactive Notebooks- When and Where?

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I’m back with some more tips and tricks on using interactive notebooks.  Today I thought I would combine the where and when.  Where do I store interactive notebooks in my class?  Well, first you need to ask yourself do you want the kids to keep them in their desks, or do you want to store them in the classroom and take them out each time you work in them?
I chose to store them myself.  Some of my students have a black hole in their desks and I want to keep these books in good shape.  This past year, I kept them in a large plastic tub.  By the end of the year, I had to stack some of them on top of others because they were getting fat and wouldn’t all fit in the tub.  That was fine with me.  They stayed in great shape and no one lost their book or accidentally took it home.

IN-storage-2

The most common question I get about interactive notebooks is;  When do I find the time to work on them?  This past year I dedicated a part of my Monday to work on our interactive notebooks.  Since these notebooks are thematic, I always integrated them into our science or social studies unit we were working on.  So we usually learned a concept and then I modeled how we would do a page in our notebook.

At the beginning of the year, we spent a lot of time modeling how to cut, glue, color, write, and the parts of a nonfiction book  (our notebook).  As we became more confident in the basic skills, we were able to complete a page easily on the day we had dedicated to our notebooks.  Later in the year, I was able to give instructions on a page to do in our notebook as a mini-lesson during our Daily 5 time.  When they went to work on writing, they completed the page I wanted to be done for the day.  That worked out great.

I think you have to have the right mindset to dedicate time each week to them.  You can integrate them into so many standards.

When do you fit interactive notebooks into your day?  Or, if you are thinking of beginning them when do you think you will fit them in?

To read more posts about interactive notebooks, click below.

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