Last week I had the privilege to work with a group of Kindergarten, First and Second Grade teachers in Southwest Georgia on how to incorporate Interactive Notebooks into their classroom setting as well as giving them strategies to benefit them!
I will admit that when I was preparing for this workshop I started to get nervous because I haven’t been in a second grade classroom since 2009. I loved my three years of teaching second grade but I really worried that I would be able to get my ideas and strategies across correctly without being over the head of young minds. As soon as I got started those nerves left the building!
We started with creating some fabulous cover pages to make our Interactive Notebooks our own. I know that this is my FAVORITE part of creating an Interactive Notebook because I get unleash my creative side.
Walking around and seeing the different styles of cover pages by different teachers was very telling of their style. I will tell you they all loved using color! One of the curriculum specialists had to go hunt down more markers so they could all have some. I was LOVING it!
As a part of this workshop I provided the teachers with 15 different activities that I had created for my Kindergarten, First and Second Grade Math Interactive Notebooks for Young Minds. Our first activity had us already finding misconceptions that students might have when doing the lesson which was GREAT!
As you can see the gift boxes have a flap that have a position word written on them. I gave the teachers stickers to then create an example of each of the position words underneath the flap. There will always be that student (teacher in this case.. hehe) that will not necessarily listen completely and do the assignment the way they interpreted. I loved it and had to show it to the other teachers and grab a picture (with her permission of course). When it came down to it this solidified there is NO WRONG WAY to create an Interactive Notebook!
Before we even got to some of the next activities I already had teachers asking how to incorporate CGI Problem Solving into their notebooks. We talked about how they would be great OUTPUT activities for students to do on the right hand side of their notebook so all of their work is in one notebook rather than multiple notebooks for the same subject.
The collaboration of teachers all over the region as we were going through the workshop was definitely motivating. You could see every teacher talking about how to use the activities in their classroom as well as how much their students would enjoy something more than just practice on a worksheet.
I really enjoyed creating the Kindergarten, First and Second Grade Math Interactive Notebooks for Young Minds and it has definitely been a labor of love over the past 3 months as I kept them a secret! I want you to check them out and see what you think so in every preview I have included 3 FREE SAMPLE ACTIVITIES so that you can try it out before you buy it!
And because I know that many of the standards overlap, as well as the need for intervention and acceleration, I have also created a MEGA BUNDLE that allows you to purchase all three bundles for the price of TWO!
P.S. Many of you have asked about creating 3rd-5th grade Math Notebooks. They are on my list to create this summer or as soon as I finish 6th-8th (whichever comes first). I am honored to be asked to create these as they truly have been an amazing passion to create.
P.P.S. Because I love my friends who teach Kindergarten through Second Grade so much I have created a special Pinterest board just for my favorites! Check it out and follow because there are some awesome ideas within these links!
