Notebooking, Teaching, and Technology

This idea came across my news feed on Facebook and I loved the literacy connection to notebooking. Gluing is always an issue in the notebooks and this is a great way to introduce the problem of "too much glue". See the entire blog post about it HERE . I am passing it along in the hopes someone finds it as helpful as I did.

Day 2 Prior to class starting you should have your science textbook on each table (or make sure each child brings their copy of the textbook). Pass out notebooks . See if students can remember any of your rules (review). Show them the instruction booklet you glued in the day before. Have them turn to the instructions about title pages and have them make their first title page next to the page you glued the inquiry standards on. I make a sample title page on the Interative White Board (IWB) and we go through what could be drawn in each block (this is a nice classroom discussion and gives you an idea of what students already know about science). Block 1 is generally something about safety, block 2 is some kind of tool a scientist might use, block 3 is a graph of some kind, block 4 I have them draw the five senses (this is where I teach them the interactive definition of observation - see video above. This gets them up and moving. Students can copy what you drew on the IWB...

Here is what would be my rough plan for the first day in my science classroom: (DISCLAIMER - As many of my readers know I took an Instructional Technology Coach position last year and will be doing the same this coming year. Although my main job in the schools I serve....four this year....is to help teachers integrate technology into the classroom I still help out with teachers who want to implement notebooking in the classroom. Floating between four schools also gives me the opportunity to see great teaching ideas and share among schools and this blog!). Day 1 - This is usually collecting supplies, going over classrooom rules (everything from bathroom procedures to tucking in chairs - I usually act out the behaviors I don't want to see and the behaviors I do want to see...which usually cracks up the students). Show them where you keep things in the classroom (particularly the Plan of the Day). I have students practice a fire drill so they know where to go when they a...

I recently went to a training with a friend of mine who teaches fourth grade (all subjects). It was the kind of training where somethings were useful but then there were large pockets of time where we were doodling, writing our "to do" list, and generally not paying attention. During that time I put together a rough plan of how I would spend the first few weeks in science and the rough timing for the rest of the school year. I'm posting it in case readers might find it helpful during the planning phase of summer (I am trying to develop an entire unit plan for my Teachers Pay Teachers site but I'm not sure I can get it done quickly enough). The first weeks in science is dedicated to our inquiry standards. The general understanding is that our inquiry standards are introduced in those first few weeks and then many of the concepts are woven into our other standards (Weather, Organisms, etc.). The problem with our inquiry standards is that they can ...

I happened to be in a friends room who notebooks in Social Studies and noticed her notebooks on the shelf. I love love love that she put colored duct tap on the binding to, not only secure an area that typically starts falling apart, but allows for easy identification.

This is a copy of an earlier post I did about using recycled paper in the notebook. Since one side is always glued to the book it is a good idea to conserve where you can. My principal is a huge fan of this part of notebooking since it supports his efforts to reduce paper consumption ($$). During one of our back-to-school meetings where all staff was present I told teachers that I would be recycling paper into our notebooks. I set up a bin (the top lid of a paper box with recycle written all over it) in the copier room and asked teachers if they have messed up a copy to please but it in the box because I can use the back side. It worked out great. Everyone was making back to school copies and I have plenty of material to work with. Last year I started recycling late and even though I set up a box nobody really contributed or people chucked it. This year I will have plenty of material to work with. NOTE: It has been three weeks and I probably should have told folks to make sure the cop...

Want to try notebooking but are completely overwhelmed and don't know where to start? Here is what I do it.... Start with the standards and the title page. Move on to the vocabulary for the unit (for me it is the Bingo board). Those two either take up the first day or the first couple of days in a new unit for me. Look over your standards and see what logically makes sense to you to teach next. Our inquiry standards end with safety but I bump it up to being the first thing I address, because it makes sense to me. Our weather unit starts with the water cycle as the first indicator but I bump the one up about weather tools, again because it makes sense to introduce the tools first. I look at the resources I have for what I am going to teach - textbook, science kits, videos, etc. and decide what I can use to go on the LH (learning/lesson side). Then I decide what the student is going to do on the RH (reinforcing/reflection) page ( foldable , notes, acrostic, illustrated outline, ...

I have had the pleasure of introducing notebooking to several schools in my district this year and at the South Carolina Science Council Convention (picture of me above). Most of the presentations I made were at the requests of other teachers, not administration . To me those are the better presentations. I find teachers tend to be more receptive to ideas if they are suggested by another teacher as opposed to administration (to which the general reaction is...."Great something else we are being asked to do/try!" :) If you are thinking about trying notebooking next year, or if you have started this year and would like to share your experiences with other teachers in your school, NOW is the time to speak at a facility meeting or a team meeting (feel free to download the PowerPoint I put together and can be found under the "video" label). This would give other teachers time to start thinking about it and possibly plan over the summer. If it is something that is int...

All teachers have those little things that drive you INSANE during the course of the school year. Initially for me it was the constant need to get up and use the pencil sharpener...ugh! (or worse yet...not having a pencil...nothing slows down notebooking more). I made my peace with that years ago by having a pencil loaner bin filled with the cheap plastic pencil sharpeners (that catch shavings). I buy those at Staples during their penny sale and as a teacher you can get more then the "four per customer" rule. I did not buy enough for this years class and made a mental note to get more. Make sure you put your name on it with permanent marker THEN put a piece of clear tape over it. That has kept them from disappearing and is an easy way to tell the difference between yours and a student. Of course my next little pet peeve is that students will not take a pencil if it doesn't have an eraser so that leads to a 5 minute search through the pencil loaner bin for one that does....

Today was a "full moon" crazy day with the students (and a Friday)....you know the day where you lost everyone the moment they set foot into the classroom and it just gets worse as the day goes on? In those situations I really try to remember that a sense of humor goes a long way. Of course I had "a lot I wanted the class to accomplish" and it took me part of the day to find my sense of humor....the question is what do you do on a day like that? For me I immediately reduced what I wanted to accomplish for the day to...take a quiz, listen to the lyrics of a magnet song, and play BINGO (I lost the students at the magnet song...behavior wise...but got them back with Bingo). General on my "full moon" crazy days, when everything is going wrong, I can always count on asking students to produce science related posters or drawings (with captions) to put outside in our hallway. Today the kids were too chatty to let them work independantly so Bingo was a good activi...

In my first year of teaching I had two classes I didn't know what to do with. They were out of control behavior wise and they wound up not doing a lot of the same experiments and activities as the other students because of their behavior. Part of the problem was that I was a new teacher with no experience and another part of the problem was that I wasn't looking for another way to tackle the problem (other then to take away the activity/experiment). When I moved down to fourth grade the behaviors were not as extreme as in my sixth grade class so everyone pretty much got to do all the activites. This year, however, I have a group of students (fourth graders) who have behavior issues that had me thinking, "Oh dear, I am going to have to threaten and follow through on taking away an activity." That is when I started thinking outside the box a little. I realized I could do the activity/experiment if I had another set of adult hands...so my attention wasn't divided bet...

Our social studies teacher in fourth grade (Mrs. Amy Edwards - http://www.mrsedwardsclass.com/ ) is trying notebooking in Social Studies this year and is enjoying it. We share ideas back and forth and this is one that she came up with for the organization of the BINGO markers that I really thought was good and will be doing next week. She got the the snack sized ziplock bags and taped a corner of the bag to reinforce it. She snipped off a small part of the same corner to allow air to escape out (the tape reinforced the corners so the bag would not tear up the seam). She taped the bag to the back inside cover of the notebook and put the bingo markers inside it. Each child now has their own set of BINGO markers, which saves time when setting up the game, reduces student blowing air into the bags and trying to pop them, and makes students more responsible for keeping their BINGO markers off the floor, etc.

I allow both colored pencils and crayons in the notebook and students started becoming sloppy using the crayons. I decided I wanted colored pencils ONLY. So I purchased five plastic shoe boxes from the local dollar store (one for each table grouping) and loaded them up with the colored pencils I had purchased this past summer when they went on sale for .25 a pack. Luckily I had asked for donations of colored pencils at the end of last year and got a TON (thank you Ms. Musgrave for that suggestion) and divided those up among the five boxes. I then added hand held sharpeners to each box (the ones that catch the shavings). Those were on sale at Staples this past summer for a penny each and I should have bought more. Ideally I would have three sharpeners per box but at the moment it is one (maybe two). Because there are so many colored pencils in the box I have not experienced any whining ("So and so has the only black pencil!") there has been some fighting for the pencil sharpe...

As I am writing this, it is Saturday...two days before teachers go back to school. Most teachers know that the week that we go back to school our days are heavily scheduled with school meetings, team meetings, district meetings, technology meetings, curriculum meetings, meet-and-greets, etc. so the actual time spent in the classroom is very limited. I find it helpful to have some notebooking things done before that Monday. In my case I have moved classrooms this year so I really tried to be as organized as possible with the notebooks so I had one less thing to think about as I unpack and put away. My checklist consists of: ___ Purchased composition books (students will replace stock when they bring in supplies) ___ Put name labels on each book ___ Developed a storage system for books (in my case purchasing bins) ___ Reinforced binding with clear masking tape (done in front of the TV one evening) ___ Glued in starter pages (will also do in front of TV this weekend) I plan to start not...

Here in South Carolina we start school on August 17 th so I am working like mad to get everything set up in the classroom (teachers go back on Monday). I found these bins doing a walkthrough at Wal -Mart in their campus supply section and liked that could easily fit 25 notebooks with room to spare. The bins I used last year were too small and it became problematic. I am teaching three fourth grade science classes this year so I purchased three different colored bins to separate the notebooks. These bins would not fit on a traditional bookshelf but they do fit on a counter top or table. I have an ELA group and am going to try my hand at reading notebooks this year. I'll post some periodic updates :) I use mailing labels placed in the upper right hand side of the book to put names so I can, and the students can, find their book quickly (see third orange bin). For management I set my students up in groups of four and each table is labeled (wide blue painters tape) 1 through 4. On...

Today is July 21st and Walmart currently has composition books on sale for .45 (a great deal considering the cheapest I have ever been able to find them is .50). I tend to buy what I need ahead of time - which helps if you want to pre -glue pages or reinforce the binding and edges with clear packaging tape. Once students come in with their supplies I collect a composition book to replace the stock I just purchased. Those get stored so I am ready for the next year. It is nice having the notebooks ready to go the first day of school. If you don't want to put out that much money ahead of time I would recommend getting a few so that those students who are slow to get their supplies will have them when you get started notebooking (that is generally about 3-5 students per class in my experience). If a child has purchased a Hannah Montana composition book or something they are really attached to I don't make it a big deal. I've only run into that problem a couple of times and t...

We have two teams of fourth grade teachers in our school. The other science teacher on the team wanted to try the notebooking concept in her three ring binders for the remainder of the year, as opposed to starting a new composition book with her students late in the year. I shared what I was doing and simply modified the handouts and assignments for her three ring binder. It worked out well, however she still had the same problems that exist with the three ring binders that make them unattractive for me, pages getting torn out and lost. On the plus side though students had a lot more room to write/draw. The pictures above are some of the pages her students did modifying the notebooking concept for a three ring binder.

Since I decided to use only one notebook this year, instead of starting new ones in January, student books are showing wear and tear - primarily with the binding. To counteract that I have reinforced the binding using clear packing tape, which seems to work. Next year I think I might have a classroom volunteer start out at the beginning of the year reinforcing the binding with clear tape so it doesn't become a problem. Student do tend to pick at the tape so I told students that any book without any picked tape at the end of the year will get a treat. This has worked well with their desk name tags. I got tired of replacing their names on the desk (which I just use blue thick painters tape - the good kind 3M - and write their name on it - nothing fancy here!). Anyone who has their name still on their desk, and I can read it, on the last day of school will get a treat. My kids switch classes so their table partner (the person who sits at their table in the morning or afternoon) will ...

I substituted at a school once where I needed to borrow colored pencils from another teacher to complete a project. She handed me a tub similar to the one pictured above full of colored pencils. She said that at the end of each school year she asks students to donate any unwanted color pencils to the box. She said you would be surprised how many you collect doing that. She keeps the tub out when doing projects and students can borrow from it. I did not do that last year (crazy year!) but will definitely do it this year to start my collection. While we require students to have colored pencils the reality is that they never have them when you need them. As stated in an early post, colored pencils are preferred in the notebooks over markers (they bleed through) or crayons (wax makes it hard to write over it if you are taking notes or need to label something). Occasionally I will need crayons and markers so I can see myself getting a few bins and having students donate those as well as pe...

I apologize for not writing more. Unfortunately we suspended science for a couple of weeks in our classroom, at the end of a unit, in order to practice for our state writing exam, which students took yesterday. I am happy to write that we are back to science and started our unit on light, electricity and magnets. Students worked on their title page yesterday and will finish up today on our modified schedule after the second part of the state test is given. Today's post is about inexpensive glue. As a notebooker I have gone through TONS of glue, so much in fact that I joined Elmer's Glue Crew for recycling glue bottles - and extended it school wide. I tend to buy glue when it goes on sale at the beginning of the year and generally have 4 bottles in my supply bins for each table grouping (I have five table groupings). I was hoping that would last the entire year but sadly it has not. I ran out of school money in our classroom budget and was faced with buying glue refill at Stap...