Saturday, August 17, 2013

SO we have started our Reading Interactive Notebooks

I have officially survived my first full week of school.  I have been busy this week and boy I am tired!!!!  My body and my bladder are having a difficult time adjusting.  :)

I have spent the week laying the ground work for the school year.  In my language arts class, we began putting together our interactive notebooks.  The kids were SO excited about these!!!!!!  I get a lot of questions about how to put these together.  Here is what I have chosen to do with them.  Maybe this will give you some ideas.  

1.  The first thing I did was copy the cover, dividers, and all of the headers/I can statements for each standard.  

2.  The kids colored and glued the cover for the notebooks.  



3.  I had the students number each of the pages so we will always be on the same page and everyone's notebook will look similar.  The students numbered the fronts and backs of each sheet in the bottom corners.  

4.  We cut out and glued all of the headers and dividers on the appropriate pages.  When gluing the headers in, I allowed some additional pages for each standard for other activities that we might do in class that I wanted to be in the notebook.  


Now the notebooks are ready to go for next week.  We will be creating our interactive pages for poetry, drama, and prose.  I have decided to start with the Common Core Standard. 

RL.4.5Explain major differences between poems, drama, and prose, and refer to the structural elements of poems (e.g., verse, rhythm, meter) and drama (e.g., casts of characters, settings, descriptions, dialogue, stage directions) when writing or speaking about a text.

The theory behind this is as we read fiction all year long, I can refer back to this standard by asking the students if what they are reading is poetry, drama, or prose and explain their answer by describing the structural elements of each type of writing.  

I will blog about our activities that we do next weekend, but I plan to use my unit Understanding Prose, Poetry, and Prose.  If you want to check this out in my TpT store, click on the picture below.  


I hope this post helps you with deciding how to start putting together your notebooks.  :)  

Have a great weekend!!!!!

24 comments:

  1. Good idea! I love that you had the kids decorate their own.

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  2. I am really excited to make these with my kids this year! Do you go in order as you make them? I am trying to decide how I am going to incorporate this.

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  3. @ Cassandra,

    I had the students put the I can statements in their notebooks in order, but I don't teach the standards in order. I will just say turn to page 53 and everyone will have their I can statement already glued in there for the standard I am covering and they can create their page. :) I think this is going to work well for the kids. Last year, my notebooks were not in any kind of order and it drove me insane!!!!

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  4. I love these! I may have the kiddos bring them to the library at some point so I can look at them and see what all you guys have done! :-)

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  5. My "I Cans" are all copied so that we can put them in our notebooks today! I can't wait to get started!

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  6. I just love your products and all of your ideas. I think I've purchased just about all of your products as I'm a 4th grade teacher as well. I can't wait to incorporate your new reading and language journals this year. I will be introducing those next week. I loved your Poetry, Prose, and Drama unit last year and plan to move it to the beginning of the year as well. I think it will be such a great starting-off point. Do you have a yearly progression document or sequence of units that you would be willing to share? I would love to know the order that you plan to cover each of the CCSS standards. Thanks!

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    1. I agree with Jessica! I also am looking forward to seeing the order that you plan to cover each of the CCSS standards.

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  7. @ Jessica,

    Thank you so much for your sweet, sweet comments! This is the first year that I have started with that standard, but I have loved it! Now I can reference it all year long as we read by questioning the kids, "is this a poem, drama, or prose? How do you know?"

    I don't have a pacing guide that I can share publicly yet. It is something I am working on, but I think right now, the only person it makes sense to is me. I will definitely work on putting it in a format that is presentable and post it on my blog. ;)

    ~Nicole

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  8. Hi Nicole! Hop over to my blog and link up to Interactive Notebooking linky!

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  9. Nicole,
    I absolutely love your products also! I am a first year fourth grade ELA teacher (after 5 years of teaching math!) and am using a lot of your ideas in my room! Anything you can share is greatly appreciated! I would also love to see your pacing guide as I am still trying to figure out how to put this all together! I started working on putting our interactive reading journals together today, and am going to use your poetry, drama, and prose unit starting next week! Do you have page numbers for the interactive notebook I can statements? I want the students to put their I can statements in the notebook ahead of time like you did, but some of them, I am unsure about how many pages to skip between each statement. Thank you again for all of your wonderful work! Looking forward to seeing more!!

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  10. This is great! I have never used Interactive Notebooks, and don't know much about them. I plan on following you to see what you do with them throughout the year. Maybe next year I will try this in my classroom! Also, glad to have found a fellow upper elementary school teacher's blog :)
    http://livingthedreamfsow.blogspot.com/

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  11. I am thankful for teachers that share their great ideas!

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  12. Nicole,
    How did you incorporate your language notebook with the reading one? Did you put them in the same notebook or two different ones? These are great! I have the reading notebook and a, debating whether or not to try both the reading and language ones next year. Thanks for your help and input.
    Sara

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  13. Hi Sara,

    I put both in the same notebook. There is more than enough room to do so if you have a 100 page count notebook. :)

    Thanks,
    Nicole

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    1. Hi Nicole,
      I am super excited to use the interactive notebooks with my third graders this coming year! I was wondering how many of the 'table of contents' pages you print off for each child to glue in the notebook at the beginning of the year? I plan to use a separate notebook for language and reading. Thanks!, Diana

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    2. I copy for the Language and the Reading together. I typically copy five (I think) for each student. I am not sure how many you would need if you are doing the separately because both will fit into one notebook. I am sorry I can't give you a better number.

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  14. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  15. Hi Nicole,

    I read that you had your students paste all of the I Cans into their notebooks at the beginning of the year. Did this work well for you? I am trying to decide if I want them to paste all at the beginning or as we go. Thanks for your thoughts!!!

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  16. Hi Nicole,

    Can you tell me how long these notebooks should take on a daily basis with second graders? Also, do you work on them everyday? I'm so scared of getting in over my head! Thank you so much!

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    1. Hi Barb,

      I don't notebook every day with my students. I notebook when I teach a new standard, generally on Monday, and then we add examples and information all week. All of the standards are available in the notebook, but if you don't want to notebook every standard, you don't have to. Keep it as simple as you want so you don't get overwhelmed. The notebooks are meant to be a tool, not a burden. I hope this helps!

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    2. Thank you! That does help!

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  17. I bought your 3rd grade reading and language notebooks, do you have just the titles with I can statements? I really like your idea of having the kids put them in the notebook right away but it will be a little crazy getting all of those ready!

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    1. The titles are all in the notebook files. Almost ALL of the titles are all on separate pages so all you have to do is print those particular pages.

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