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| A full page graphic organizer folded and then taped into our notebook. For social studies, I chose to use a composition notebook instead of a spiral notebook. The way this is attached, students can still access the page and complete the activities. |
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| This was a flow chart from InspirEd Educators Ancient Civilizations unit on how a civilization develops. |
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| Quizzing students on what is really needed for a civilization to develop. |
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| Another lesson from InspirEd Educators based on scenarios related to survival for an ancient civilization. |
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| This is a simulation activity where students are "color" coded and have jobs to do. Some students had to draw diamonds for basically no reward while a few others got credit for completed sheets, but had to count the diamonds, while an even smaller group was "paid" just for bossing all of the others around. Students could see how different social classes came to be within a civilization. |
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| Mapping ancient Egypt. Students were enthralled with the fact that Lower Egypt is actually located "higher" than Upper Egypt. |
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| Understanding the archaeology of ancient Egypt. |
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| Learning about the gods and goddesses of ancient Egypt. |
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| Figuring out the bartering system of ancient Egypt. |
I just came over from Pinterest. I absolutely love your interactive notebooks! I just finished my 2nd year of teaching 6th Grade Language Arts in Arkansas. I would love to implement these in my classroom next year!! How did you go about planning for your notebooks and how did you get started?
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Sarah Berry (seberry855@gmail.com)
this is amazing. inspirED is $30 a lesson. is there a membership one could have to lower costs?
ReplyDeleteI am not aware of any membership. I purchase my units through teacherspayteachers.com...they are the same price ($30), but there you get credits for each dollar you spend. So I use those credits to take a dollar amount off of my final purchase.
DeleteThe units I have purchase from InspirED Ed are about 100 pages as a pdf downloard and contain 15 or more lessons within that download. I like having th pdf version because I can print pages out 2 to a page to make them fit the composition notebook and I don't have to fight the copier to shrink the pages down and such.
Look around their site, they do offer a discount if you buy an ancient civilizations complete unit...they may have the deal for other "sets" as well. Hope this helps.
Which themes did you purchase? I wonder if the ancient civilization binder has the same activities as the theme packs? Any idea?
ReplyDeleteI only purchased the Ancient Civilizations and Ancient Egypt themes this year. I discovered InsprirEd Educators around Christmas time...after the school year was almost half over. I was planning on purchasing all of the "ancient" themes for next year, until I just found out I would be moving to 7th grade and teaching science next year.
DeleteI think they themes are more detailed than the binder units. You can always call the company and ask...they are very nice and helpful.
Let me know if you have any other questions I may (or probably not) be able to answer.
Seldy-
ReplyDeleteContacted you before.....still very interested in the notebooks and am trying to wrap my brain around it. How did you grade it? Did you take weekly grades? It would seem a daunting task to collect all of them at the end of a quarter. However, they are so deatailed and so much time is spent on them that it seems like they should count as a big part of the quarter grade. Thanks! Rhonda
Rhonda,
DeleteI do take like a daily participation grade in our interactive notebooks. Since everything is completed in our classroom, then I just make sure it is completed and they get a "freebie grade" basically.
If there is an assignment that I want to grade, I do that separately and take that up for a grade.
The best way I have found to check them, is to check them as students are working. I go around the room and check for completion as they are working on other assignments.
Hope this helps! And I hope I responded to your other comment. I did not realize there would be this many people reading and asking questions about my ramblings.
Randy
Randy-
ReplyDeleteIt's me again with another question. Did you use interactive notebooks in the true "left side - right side" sense or did you modify them to fit your needs. I am still trying to figure out how I want to use them....I just know that I want to!
Thanks.
Rhonda
Rhonda,
DeleteI scrapped the whole left side/right side thing. I just couldn't get it to work for me.
Read this previous post of mine where I talk about this issue Logistics of Interactive Notebooks
Hope this helps.
Randy
I also have used interactive notebooks frequently, I model the table of contents frequently so they remember to keep track. This also helps them locate items easily. For grading I create a quick checklist on WORD and allow them to trade with a partner, for every item that is missing or poorly done, they lose points off the final grade. I grade them about every six weeks.
ReplyDeleteI'm just starting my second year of teaching seventh grade social studies, after teaching language arts for nine years. I like the idea of your IN - my question is, does it take a lot of time to glue/tape everything into the notebooks? I'm sure some kids would be just fine, but I can see it being an issue for others. :)
ReplyDeleteAlso, it seems that you used the notebook as a replacement for a textbook - am I drawing the right conclusion?
Thanks,
Shannon