Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Tried It Tuesday-Unit Table of Contents

It's April 1st and foolishly, the state of Texas has our kids testing!!! 
NO JOKE!!! 

My kids aren't, but our 7th and 8th graders are. It's actually pretty quiet. The kids are being pretty sensitive to the fact that testing is going on all around us. 

It's also time for: 



I wish I had tried this earlier in the year. But my stubbornness got the better of me. 

I saw this idea on Math = Love. I liked it a lot and I even shared it with a Science teacher who uses interactive notebooks almost as much as I do. She loved it and like a smart teacher, used it right away. 

I finally tried it and LOVE LOVE LOVE it. My students LOVE it too and I am definitely doing this from the beginning next year. 

What am I talking about?  
Making a table of content for each unit, instead of a table of contents for our entire math notebook. 

My table of contents looks like this: 
I have been determined to keep it up to date. 

My students' on the other hand



So, for our last new unit, we did this: 

This is what my students' looks like: 



The same!!! Yes, that is the point!!! 


It is perfect because it's current. It also signifies the end of one and the beginning of another unit. 

We also added a tab which has been helpful to get to the pages they needed this past week when I was gone.  

Sarah, from Math=Love has also posted about she keeps lots of these on hand so whenever she needs them, they are ready. I did the same. I made lots of copies and on different colors. I do the color thing just for fun. My students respond to colored paper better than white paper. I haven't quite figured out why, but I am glad that it does. 

We will get to use this later this year as well. We are getting new standards for the 2014-2015 school year. We have some prep work to do before we send them to the next grade level due to the changes. 

Now, I just wish I had "tried" it sooner. Live and learn, right? 


Now, go link up with Holly at Fourth Grade Flipper and see all the other "tried its". 







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5 comments:

  1. This is a really good idea! I'll admit, I never really got on the Interactive Notebook bandwagon. It just seems like it would take so much time and the kids would see it more as crafting than anything else. I know I'm probably missing the point...We do have vocabulary notebooks and those are quite handy. I should investigate this more this summer. Thanks for the idea and for letting me think out loud! :)

    Jennifer
    Mrs. Laffin's Laughings

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  2. I love this idea! I like the idea of doing a table of contents for each unit and not the whole notebook. I think it would be better for my students and I because it makes it more manageable. Thanks for sharing!
    Jen
    http://endeavorsineducation.blogspot.com/

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  3. That's a great idea and is so much easier for students to use it as a resource! Thanks for sharing a great tip!
    Joanne
    Head Over Heels For Teaching

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  4. I love the tabs and how organized this is! It makes my heart skip a beat! :) If I go back to teaching math, I am totally using this idea!
    ~Holly
    Fourth Grade Flipper

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  5. Love the idea of the tabs. I swear I'm going to dig into interactive notebooks this summer and sort through the ones I've bought!
    Alison
    Rockin' and Lovin' Learnin'

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