Skip to main content

Notebooking Everyday

I don't think I mentioned this before but I feel strongly that if you are going to start notebooking in the classroom you should use the notebooks everyday.

If you only use the notebooks every once in awhile they become less meaningful to both you and the student.

It is pretty easy to get into the mindset of using notebooks everyday. I start my weekly planning asking myself:

What do we have going on for the week? (Elementary schools have so many programs, special events, etc. that it affects timing)

Where are we in relation to the standards and the long range plan?

What are the main things that students will be learning this week?

I take the last question and then start planning notebook assignments. For example, when students return to school next week they are going to make their title page for the the next unit in their notebook and review the standards and possibly do a book walk through the chapters. They are going to learn about the characteristics of life that all organisms share and do a notebook activity. We are going to discuss how organisms are classified and do a notebook activity and so on for the rest of the week.

By using the notebooks everyday you become better at notebooking and the students become better as well.

I have a friend who started notebooks but didn't use them everyday. She was commenting on the work of my students and how she needed to be better at pulling them (the notebooks) out more often. She started on her next unit and made it a point to use them everyday and the quality of work her students were producing went up and now I am the one commenting on her notebooks. So it doesn't matter if you haven't been using them effectively you can always restart and move forward from where you are at now.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Weathering, Erosion, and Deposition Activity

I saw this activity at a science conference years ago and haven't had a chance to use it in a classroom until this week (mainly because I didn't teach weathering, erosion, and deposition). It is a great way to reinforce the definition of the weathering, erosion, and deposition in a highly kinesthetic manner. Basically you break the students up into groups of three. One group is "Weathering" another group is "Erosion" and the third group is "Deposition". Add tape to the back because you are going to stick them to the forehead of the children in each group. The "weathering" students get a sheet of paper that is their "rock" they will be breaking down. At the start of the activity the "weathering" students will start ripping tiny pieces of their "rock" and handing it to the "erosion" students. The "erosion" students will be running their tiny piece of "rock&

Picture of the Day - Activity

I attended a training class and a science coach shared an activity that he does with his students to help them differentiate between observations, inferences, and predictions. He puts a picture on the interactive white board as a warm up (he gets the pictures from a variety of sources but uses National Geographic's Picture of the Day a lot). The picture above is from the National Geographic site. He has the students make five observations. Then he makes the students make five inferences. Finally he has the students make five predictions. He does this every day and it really drives home the difference between those three key inquiry vocabulary terms. I've done this activity with both my sixth and fourth grade science classes and the students really got into it and became proficient at telling me the difference between those terms.

Rock Cycle Activity

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