INTERACTIVE NOTEBOOKS Moore Public Schools

WHAT ARE INTERACTIVE NOTEBOOKS?  Interactive Student Notebooks are books that help students to become interactive thinkers.  They help students to have a place to put new knowledge while providing access to prior knowledge, as well.  They can enable struggling learners with a tool to help them remember what has already been taught and help advanced learners to challenge themselves since the notebooks can be simple or innovative to fit the students’ abilities.  Additionally, these notebooks help students become more organized, provide spiraled instruction, and can help with sequencing of their learning.  Finally, interactive notebooks can add an element of fun to students’ learning! They are personal textbooks!

INTERACTIVE NOTEBOOKS ARE BRAIN FRIENDLY…USE IT OR LOSE IT!  When we have stimulating experiences that are appropriate for our level of experience, our brains can grow rapidly. Active learning grows more dendrites than passive learning. By using interactive notebooks, you can make a more passive activity become more brain friendly!  Learners need time to contemplate what they are learning.  Being allowed to make choices automatically engages students.  Providing choices demands active processing.  Getting to work with others encourages meaningful conversations and thoughts.  In the most brain friendly classrooms, students extract meaning themselves.  Meaningfulness and prior experiences should be central in your primary classroom. Begin With the Brain: Orchestrating the Learner- Centered Classroom By Martha Kaufeldt

HOW CAN THE INTERACTIVE NOTEBOOK BRING ACTIVE LEARNING TO THE CLASSROOM?  Just the use of the notebook during the school week will promote more independent thought and cooperative learning.  As students think about how they will add to their notebook what they learned, they will share with others by looking at other students’ designs and talking about how they will do their own notebook.  You can even start with brain research. Students love to learn about how the brain works.  Look for a module on Brain Friendly Learning on  As you present new concepts in math, reading, language, science, and social studies, you will add these concepts to their interactive notebooks. Giving students a chance to reflect on what they have learned will help that learning “stick”.

HOW TO GET STARTED WITH INTERACTIVE NOTEBOOKS…  Start with deciding if you want a notebook where you will put all subjects or if you just want a notebook for math…or for reading…or for science…or for social studies etc.  This decision will be dependent upon if you have notebooks available to you for students to use or if you will need to purchase them.  You could make books for the students to use or you could even buy hard cover books from When students feel like they are writing their own book, it gives them ownership for the project.  Even if you just staple some paper together for the interactive notebook, you can have these in your classroom. Do it in whatever way that you can sustain them so that they do not become burdensome to you.  You can even write Donors Choose grants for notebooks.

WHERE CAN YOU GET RESOURCES FOR YOUR NOTEBOOKS?  Once you do a google search, you will see that your choices are pretty endless. Interactive Student Notebooks are extremely popular right now.  You can make your own resources or you can buy them on many teacher pay teacher web sites.

RESOURCES FOR INTERACTIVE NOTEBOOKS…  Pack-for-ALL-SUBJECTS probably one of the easiest ways to get started. Pack-for-ALL-SUBJECTS free foldables (you must register) you can use them in kindergarten…read this blog to see how. this one has some great paid resources to use for science and social studies. You can have a separate folder for each of your units. Students make these and can take them home after a unit is finished. Great for learning how to research. Interactive-Notebooks-Personal-and-Commercial-Use https:// Interactive-Notebooks-Personal-and-Commercial-Use flip books could be a good way to get started with notebooking. a video of how one teacher does her notebooks

RESOURCES FOR INTERACTIVE NOTEBOOKS  Interactive-Notebook love this resource for literary elements Interactive-Notebook  great ways to include vocab in your notebooks  love her foldables!  one teacher answers a lot of questions about using interactive notebooks in a younger class.  assignment/ more from Mrs. Gannon, this time on using comic strips to retell events. I did this with US History the one year that I taught 5 th grade. It did seem to help with retelling and remembering events and it was fun! assignment/

RESOURCES FOR INTERACTIVE NOTEBOOKS  Templates-FREE-Sampler-Pack-9-Templates free foldable templates Templates-FREE-Sampler-Pack-9-Templates  more free foldable templates…you will click download and it is a pdf document that you can print.  lots of good stuff here.  pConf/Presentation_Using_Interacti.pdf lots of info and ideas here. pConf/Presentation_Using_Interacti.pdf  foldable.html good free download foldable.html  strategies.html love this one for math strategies.html

RESOURCES FOR INTERACTIVE NOTEBOOKS  free download  notebook.html free planning page download notebook.html  /1 free vocab download /1  /1 another free vocab download /1  hints from a master teacher for math notebooks  math-interactive-notebooks.pdf good stuff for getting a math notebook started math-interactive-notebooks.pdf

ARE YOU A VISUAL LEARNER? HERE ARE SOME VIDEOS TO GIVE YOU SOME IDEAS!   if notebooks seem too difficult or expensive, try a lap book: you make it with folders.  WooHoo…this girl is sassy!   don’t let the Common Core words stop you!  You get the idea! There are tons of resources out there…try interactive notebooks in some form or fashion this year and see if it doesn’t liven up your classroom!