Hey teachers!! Are you using Interactive Notebooks or planning to? I used them for years with my second graders so I definitely developed some management tricks for interactive notebooks over time. Here are some tips for you! (and if you’re wondering why you should try INBs check out my blog post here on how they keep kids engaged)!
Interactive Notebook Management Trips
Materials
The most common materials to use for INBs are composition books (the old school black and white ones)
or spiral bound notebooks. I prefer composition books because they are sturdier. Some teachers prefer to have everything independent (not in a book) so that students can turn in individual assignments so they use lined paper. This would, however, prevent students from having the resources in one place to refer to later.
Glue
I prefer liquid glue over glue sticks. Glue sticks can be wimpy and pages peel right off. But you have to train your students use use dots of glue, NOT rivers of glue! Remember the mantra, dots, not rivers.
Storage
There are several choices as to where kids can keep their notebooks. Traditionally, my students kept mine in their desks and when we transferred to flexible seating, in their cubbies. Some teachers also like to have all the INBS in a bin in a single spot for everything!
Here are some bins that I love! Clicking on the image will bring you to see them on Amazon.
Organizing Inside the INB
Table of Contents
For tables of contents like those I have in my own INBs, the very first thing my students do after they write their name on it, is cut out and glue down the table of contents, or at least some of them. You want to leave a certain number of pages free for them. I think we kept about 12-14 pages free.
Tabs
table will help your students keep their INBS organized and may be a quicker way to find things than the table of contents. I don’t have any but you can find them on Teachers Pay Teachers!
Page Numbers
Label page numbers in advance. I would have students work on page numbers when they finished other work, or sometimes as morning work , or if we had 3-5 spare minutes.
Resources
There are tons of interactive notebooks out there; however, I ended up creating my own because none of the ones I saw met my needs. I was looking for a simple design, easy to read fonts, clip art that is not distracting and simple borders. I wanted my students to focus on the content and their thinking, not the cute or distracting clip art or wiggly and wavy borders.
Check out the ones I have below! Clicking on any covers will bring you to them at TPT. the last one is a freebie!
This one is FREE if you want to just try out some INB writing activities!
Be sure to comment and let us know if you have your own management tricks for interactive notebooks that I can add to this post!
Also check out this related blog post:
