The beginning of the love of Interactive Notebooks

For my first 4 years of teaching math I asked students to have "a place" to write notes. Half the time that was little more than a random scrap of paper or maybe a spiral notebook. I was lucky if it came to school each day, it had little to no organization, and very little of my time in class was spent taking notes. With the lack of note organization in general, I emphasized activities and practice of content, though rarely students had a place to use to recall content throughout the year... what did this lead to?? countless hours of me reteaching.

A few years ago, I jumped into interactive notebooks and have no intention of ever turning back!
I was terrified my first year. All the What ifs?!? What if a kid loses it? What if a kid doesn't bring it? What if I run out of space? What do I put in it? What don't I put in it? Do theirs have to look exactly like mine? Do I make one too? What if their's doesn't look like mine?

Each year, I tweak, make new things, update, etc. But, it truly has COMPLETELY CHANGED MY TEACHING.
I could write for days about Interactive Notebooks and honestly, probably will spend much of this blog writing about them... But for today- how the heck to keep them organized?
The last 2 years, I had a running Table of Contents (all year long). They ended up being about the first 4 pages of the composition notebook and ultimately- kids rarely kept up with it. AKA- this meant kids had NO idea where stuff was and would just skim through until they found it!

This year I was determined to make a change! 

At the end of last year I asked my kids a few questions regarding their "Notes Notebook".
1.  What they liked?
2. What they wished I changed for next year?
3. What they wished they did better with it?

First off, kids loved that everything for math was in one place. Secondly, they loved that they had created it. That was probably the number one positive response I received.  They also, couldn't believe all that we had done and each year- many kids say they refer back to it all the time in Algebra and Geometry! (Yay!!) The Table of Contents was the biggest thing students wanted a change. The second largest item for change- a way to break up each unit! This got me thinking! The thing that most students wished they did better: keeping up with the table of contents and always writing neatly.

I thought about the table of contents a lot this summer and the above photos is what I have come up with. 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper (folded in half), We glue it to the front and back of the page (and make it stick out a little bit). This gives you a tab for the unit. The TAB! How phenomenal? Each unit, has its own little tab! #Winning. A student had suggested a sticky note for each unit- this is "my take" on the sticky note!
So far, my first two units I have made each Table of Contents a different color.... can I keep up different colors??? How many units will this be?
On the first side is the Table of Contents (solely for that unit).
On the back is a section that I stamp for homework completion. THIS HAS BEEN A LIFE SAFER! Each day, I stamp (middle schoolers love the stamps!) if they have completed their homework. On the day of the test, I'll say "Okay, take out your notebooks. If you have six stamps you are ready to take the test." All students that have six stamps start the test, if you are not ready- you work on the "formatives" (homework) while others start the tests. Let me tell you, homework completion is NO longer an issue!

There are so many things I love about Interactive Notebooks and more will come!

Enjoy!

Any Table of Contents wins that you have done with your notebooks???

-Kjersti

PS- this is solely for my Math 7 course. My Algebra 1 course also completes a Table of Contents but theirs looks a little bit different as I have them use 5 subject notebooks not composition notebooks!

This Table of Contents was made using KG Fonts.