Create Your Balance With Literacy

Interactive Notebooks

I LOVE interactive notebooks! I think this is an excellent way to reach those students who are hands-on learners. I've seen many different kinds of interactive notebooks from simple to complicated! Mine are on the simple side... because with first graders, it's very difficult for them to remember step by step what to do in the notebook if it's very lengthy. I start off small, with simple directions at the beginning of the year, and then grow from there. I'm very picky about how they glue in their notebook. I have a mini-lesson at the beginning of the year on how to glue... dot, dot, not a lot! I don't use glue sticks, because in my experience the papers fall out and don't stick as well.
I have 4 different notebooks in my classroom and I organize them by color:

Red: Focus Poetry Notebook
Green: Science and Social Studies Notebook
Black: Schema Notebook- Reading and Writing
Blue: Math Notebook

This year, I want to make a table of contents for each notebook so the students can write what each page is and put the page numbers. I also want to have my students make a title page in their notebooks as well. I can't wait to try this!

Here are some pictures of my interactive notebooks for poetry:

I also have the students glue their pages together before starting a new poem so the marker and glue doesn't bleed through to the next page. At the end of the year, the students have a whole collection of poetry to read over the summer! If you are interested in checking out my Focus Poetry Packet click here:

Focus Poetry for Every Month and Season

For science and social studies, I have the students do a lot of diagrams. They have to color, cut out their labels and glue them onto their diagram. Then, they cut out their diagram and glue it into their science or social studies notebook. Again, this is very simple for first grade. Here are some of my templates I use:

Diagram of Compass Rose

Diagram of a Tornado and a Cloud

T-Chart of Living and Nonliving

Diagram of the Eye

Diagram of Layers of Soil

Life Cycle of a Watermelon

Web of Natural Resources

Diagram of an Ant

For reading, I have a schema notebook, which is a black composition book. This is where the students respond to their book they read for the day, or glue in a skill or concept that I have taught. We do this every single day during reader's workshop. Here are some pictures of my schema notebook:

Sentence Train

Author's Purpose Flip Book

For math, I simply have the students color and cut out their templates and glue it in their notebook. Here are some of my templates that I've used: