Notebooking, Teaching, and Technology

Flow Chart Notes are a fun way to take notes particularly in a Social Studies class where many of events are told as a story. I read about Flow Chart Notes her e and decided to make a graphic organizer to support the format in my Classy Graphics Class with Tony Vincent.  (our first assignment was to make a graphic organizer in Google Drawings using the align and distribution features). CLICK HERE for a copy of this graphic organizer. It was made in Google Drawings so you can go to "file" and "make a copy" to have your own editable version. To download it as a PDF simply click "file", "download as", and then "pdf".                                 I liked how it turned out and I decided to download it as a PDF and use Kami to fill it out as a test run (see first picture). Kami and DocHub are free add ons to Google Classroom that allow students to write or draw on a PDF on a tablet (not an iPad)...

I'm always up for a fun foldable and I got one from a friend of mine. She got it from a museum course she took with her daughter and snagged a couple of templates for me (Yay! Thanks Nichelle :) It seems a bit complicated with all the mountain and valley folds but I have used it with several fourth grade classrooms and they got the hang of it pretty easily. It can be used with any topic. I choose magnets because the finished foldable reminded me of a bar magnet. To get a  free copy of the foldable template check out my GOOGLE SITES HERE .

Another one of my goals this year is to complete 52 pins on Pinterest. So I went through my pins to see if I could isolate the ones I wanted to try and a video I had pinned last year about a secret door foldable jumped out at me. The video can be found HERE . I decided to try it out using 8 1/2 x 11 card stock (the teacher used larger construction paper) and I tried it using half of the card stock (kids love things in miniature!). Both turned out cute and were very easy to do...although I might pre-cut the strips for students. I choose the topic "The Moon" for both. I have a friend who is going into Astronomy in the next quarter and thought I could talk her into trying it with her students if she saw the samples. I was also thinking that a child could do a large one for a larger topic, i.e. The Solar System, and a smaller one for a part of the larger topic, i.e. Earth (I also thought the larger one could be a habitat and the smaller one an animal in that habitat). ...

I made this poster a few year ago from book I got from my mother-in-law (who found it at a garage sale). Here is a link to the book on AMAZON  and better yet (!) a link to the FREE PDF of the book . UPDATE - Apparently the PDF site is down. Luckily I downloaded it before it went down and I have it uploaded HERE . I copied some of the templates from the book and made a "How to Make a Poster" poster (the kids think that is the funniest thing!). I left it up on the wall and earlier finishers were directed to the poster to pick a layout to make a poster for the classroom on whatever topic we were covering at the time. This could also be used as a guide for a right hand poster assignment. It currently resides in a friends classroom and she is using it in a similar fashion.

I saw this in one of the hallways at a school I work in and I really liked the concept. The art teacher tied in learning about people in the American Revolution, jobs/apprenticeships, and art all in one activity. I thought this would make a good "right hand" assignment in a notebook. The left hand side could contain the poem "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (YouTube has a pretty good dramatic reading of the poem - HERE ). The poem could be introduced in an ELA class in relation to poets, stanzas, and rhyming schemes. The children would then make "silver" teapots for the right hand side of the notebook.

I would like to thank Mrs. Johnson who allowed me to try out the "cell" phone activity in her 5th grade class. It went pretty well. It turned into a two day activity. I was hoping it could be done in one class period but with a "cell" intro and cutting out all the little pieces it ran into a second day (to finish cutting, matching, and gluing). The "cell" phone was a plant cell because of its shape. Mrs. Johnson had another cell cut out activity for an animal cell and had students do it for their left hand assignment. We listened to this cell rap song on YouTube , which the kids LOVED. I was thinking that the lyrics (which are listed in the "about" section of the song) could go on the right hand side with the phone going on the left. Probably the best moment was when we were half way through the activity a 5th grader blurted out that he finally got why it was called a "cell" phone. Ha!

Today I got to spend the day with a 3rd grade science teacher doing a rock cycle activity. She had asked for help a couple of weekends ago to find some engaging rock cycle activities for her students. I quickly did a Pinterest search and came up with a link to a middle school blog where they featured a fun looking rock cycle station activity. That website took me to the originating activity site - Illinois State Museum Geology Online and their Ride the Rock Cycle activity . I read through it and felt it was doable for third graders (although I was a little nervous about the cartooning). I offered my help and we put together the activity. The kids did it WONDERFULLY. It was one of those lesson you wish was observed (but of course never is :) They are on an alternating science schedule so she only had two of the four classes today but it was a good sampling of children. She had one class that had a high portion of struggling learners and the second class had a high...

I saw this on Pinterest and laughed out loud, after I was done I thought mmmm....this might make a good right hand notebook assignment. You could get a template of a cell phone and students would have to create a "cell" phone. It can be glued into the right hand side of your notebook. I showed it to a friend who teaches 5th grade (where cells are introduced in the standards) and she was all game to do this with her kids. I am in the process of trying to put together a template to use with her class and will post when I am done.

I have been exposed to "mind maps" before but I've never used them in the notebooks. I saw this pin on Pinterest (see first picture) which got me thinking about how they can be used in notebooks. Using my trusty craft supplies I created two mind maps in my practice notebook. The first had to do with the water cycle and the second I was thinking of  using it as an end of unit review. Here were some of my thoughts as I was creating them. 1. Student would need some serious modeling when introducing "mind maps". You can not just show them a sample and say "go". It probably would be best to do it as a group and then have students copy it into their notebook a couple of times so they get the general idea of how it works. 2. I think this would only appeal to the artistic children. I don't think it would damage the non-artistic children to go through the process of creating a mind map but when I was doing it I was thinking t...

This is part of my "pull out" mania this year. I thought it would be fun for students to draw an environment complete with at least three animals and two plants and then discuss adaptations they have that help them survive in that environment on the pull out tab.

This idea was loosely based on something I saw on Pinterest . I had the child pick an animal at the top of the food chain and create a food chain inside its belly. In hindsight she probably didn't need to have the tiger represented (since it was already represented by the drawing). This would fall under 5th grade standards here in South Carolina and I am thinking of how it could be modified to represent fossil fuels in our energy unit.

Sorry I have been absent a bit this past month. With school winding down there has been a lot to do! I have been working on some right hand assignment ideas and borrowed some fourth graders to help me out. This one was adapted from a hallyway display I saw outside a second grade classroom (see third picture). I thought it could be easily adapted and used in a notebook.

Here is a short video of a project I had to do in an Earth Science class I am taking (I am going for my second master's degree in Elementary Science Education and will hopefully be done next spring). The project required that teachers put together a "Wonder Box" of Earth science items and design a lesson plan around the box. This reminded me of a project I had done with fourth graders during my student teaching in Social Studies. I had students work in groups and they had to design a museum box that held "artifacts" of specific Native American tribes. I put together a short 1 minute 30 second video that highlights how I made my "Wonder Box" (or museum box) and how it can be done in a Social Studies class and how the activity can be incorporated into a notebook assignment. This could also be used in science. Student's can create a biome box and have artifacts of what might be found in that biome and why. Student's can create an animal box ...

This was a cute moon phases booklet that a teacher shared with me. She made it at a training and we were looking for the easiest way it could be done with her 80 fourth grade students (once we work it out I will post!).

This short (5 minute) video walks the viewer on how to put together the popsicle puzzle project. To see the tech part of it, please see an earlier video on the subject.

Here is a short video (4 minutes) explaining how to do the tech part of the popsicle puzzle project.

I made the top popsicle puzzle project with my Girl Scout troop for Valentine's Day and started thinking that it could adapted for academic and notebooking purposes. So I put together a sample project (using both the front and back of the sticks) and showed it to several teachers. Many of them wanted to know when we could start working on it. I liked it because it had a tech element to it (setting it up in Word) and the teachers liked that it could be used in just about every subject. I have a couple of classes lined up for after our state testing in May (we have four weeks after that till the end of the year). I'm making a rough guess that it will take four class periods to complete....and when you have four weeks to go to the end of the school year time consuming projects are appreciated :) I put together two short videos that I will post explaining how the project is done both on the tech end and one the crafting end.

I came across this pollination activity from this kindergarten blog and loved it. This is a perfect example of an activity that can be done and recorded in a science notebook for younger grade levels (although to be honest older grades would like this activity as well as it involves eating cheetos :) Basically the kids go from bag to bag eating from the "flower" (bag of cheetos). They can not lick or wipe their fingers (the cheese dust represents the pollen). Afterward they have go visit the flowers of their friends "landing" on it with their fingers. Afterward they have to fill out a sheet noting what they learned (if I was notebooking in this grade level this would represent the "right hand sheet" students would complete. In our district this activity is better suited for the first grade standards so I passed it on to all those teachers. One teacher emailed me back and said that she rushed out to get cheetos to do with her kids :)

Earlier in the year I posted about an activity that was done with a third grade class regarding science tools (see second picture). Later in the year I ran across the top picture of a "Readers Tool Box" and it got me thinking about combining the two. I could easily see larger versions of the tools that the kids would have to cut out label and identify their use (on the back) and put in the "Tool Box". The box would then open and close with velcro (which I love to incorporate in notebooks!). It is a bit late in the year for the idea but I can see trying it out next year. If you want to try it this year it would be a good end of year "tool" review activity in preparation for any end of year state test.

I saw this on picture on a Pinterest site and I loved it for third grade (that is when they study landforms in South Carolina). I could easily see having students draw it on the right hand side of their notebook. The picture came from the following second grade class BLOG .