Inside my Social Studies Interactive Notebook

Some had mentioned they would like to see inside my social studies interactive notebook so I finally remembered to bring it home and snap some pictures.  It is not as creative as my language arts one!  I used some foldables from Dinah Zike, some I found online, and some great units from InspirEd Educators. 

This is my first year teaching social studies (in middle school, in my career, and in 6th grade).  I teach in NC and our state will be implementing the Common Core starting next school (2012-2013).  In addition, all of our other curriculums have changed to what they call Essential  Standards.  I was put on the Social Studies Essential Standards training team for our county. 

Needless to say, I was panicked and lost at the beginning of the school year.  I started out with the five themes of geography and landforms and then moved to South America which was found in our old textbook while we read The Cay in language arts class.  Since being put on the training team, the team was told after the first nine weeks that we were allowed encouraged to convert to the new essential standards curriculum.  With that came a complete loss for me.  I had no social studies materials to start with, but the change meant I had absolutely nothing, not even the old textbook.  I headed to the Internet to search for materials, lessons, actually anything I could get my hands on and discovered InspirED Educators. 

InspirEd Educators was like this amazing find for me (and in no way am I affiliated or paid to promote their products)!  They have several thematic units on ancient world history which is what our new essential standards is for 6th grade.  These lessons contain a variety of hands on activities, primary and secondary sources, whole group/small group lessons, research projects, and collaborative projects just to name a few. 

So...long story short:  my social studies notebooks started out more interactive but then became a place to glue all the lesson from InspirEd Educators as act as a textbook for social studies.  Here are a few pictures to get started.

The table of contents for my social studies interactive notebook.

Five Themes of Geography flip book foldable.  We took notes on each tab for that theme.  Notice the capital/bold letters spell MR. HELP...this was our acronym to help remember the five themes (found on the Internet somewhere).

One of the tabs from our Five Themes of Geography flip book foldable.

Longitude and latitude foldable using a paper plate and then glued into our notebooks.

Here is the paper plate foldable unfolded in our notebook.

A bet, A loss, A win...

One of my students was struggling to earn his 100 AR points to attend our school's celebration so in my stupidity infinite wisdom, I said I bet you cannot do it either!  He is quite the athlete and is very competitive and said, "What do I get if I get my 100 AR points?"  I said to go to the celebration.  He was like you are afraid to bet me because I can do it.  I commented that I liked a good win-win situation for myself, what did he have in  mind.  So the bet became dinner at the local Mexican restaurant paid for by the loser. 

Monday, he finally earned his 100 points and was able to attend the celebration today.  He has since informed everyone that he beat me.  I paid up today after school.

REALLY?  He did get his 100 AR points, but who honestly won this bet?  We both did!  I am also the winner because he read more than he thought he would or could and is now a little more confident in himself!

Added benefit, another student is also quite competitive and she bet this boy that she would get her points before he did.  This cost me nothing and she did get her points only a minute before he did, but she had bragging rights and I had the thrill of another more confident reader. 

Cost of meal:  $8.00
Time spent with student:  2 extra hours
Confidence and relationship built:  PRICELESS

This is why I love my job and working with middle schoolers.  Just a simple little bet creates enthusiasm and confidence!


The cost of a student reading - lunch ACP and a drink.

Teacher Appreciation

Had to share a quick picture of a text I recieved from a parent (who is also a co-worker).  It made my day as I so respect this teacher and love the child.  Since my student's mother is a 7th grade language arts teacher at my school, I assumed that my student would want to be in her mother's room.  I guess once again I understand what happens when one assumes (but this time it was a good lesson to learn).  I also received a large bag of white chocolate popcorn from this students as well - her mother knows it is a favorite of mine!

Interactive Notebooks - Yet Again

I am determined to get ALL of the pictures I took a few weeks ago of my language arts interactive notebook before the end of school!  I hope to actually get it done faster than that.  I have a few other things I want to blog about before the end of the school year.  Seriously, this is the last set of pictures I have from a few weeks ago.  Any new ones will be newer pictures taken recently.
Here are some more pictures of various activities that we have included in our interactive notebooks so far this year.

Parts of an Essay from a freebie activity on www.teacherspayteachers.com.  Students had to put the "blown-up" parts together in a sensible way.  If you haven't checked out TpT, you should do it NOW!  It is full of ideas, units, lessons, activities, etc. created BY teachers and when you make a purchase, that teacher gets the profit.  This activity was a FREEBIE from that site!

Text connections (remember I am NOT an artist!)

Concept of definition/word map

Point of View foldable created from a Dinah Zike template.

Character Feelings anchor chart - found on pinterest!

Character Traits anchor chart - another pinterest find!

Characterization anchor chart - yes, pinterest again!

Inferencing anchor chart- yep, you guessed it...another pinterest score!

Author's Purpose anchor chart - this one is actually my idea.  Students added color to the ones in their notebooks.

Nonfiction text STRUCTURES, not to be confused with nonfiction text features.  I had no idea this phrase/idea existed until I ordered the wrong book.  It was a very educational mistake and I am glad that I did not completely read the title of the book before I ordered it!

More on nonfiction text STRUCTURES.

A really fun inferecing lab using white mystery airheads.  Bought the original packet on TpT, but then redesigned it into a foldable for our notebooks.  It was frustrating in the beginning, but quite an accomplishment when finished - now I know I can do it for many other things!

More on Interactive Notebooks

I am going to post a few more pictures of my language arts interactive notebook that I took a couple of weeks ago.  I have been posting a few with each blog, but am going to post several more of them on this entry.   It has been what seems like a long week, so I am going to KISS this post!  That is an acronym I teach my students:  Keep It Short and Simple.  We KISS a lot of stuff when appropriate!


This is a double bubble map we used while reading The Cay by Theodore Taylor.

This is a summarization strategy I found online call "the incredible shrinking notes" where students start out writing a summary of a reading selection on the large index card.  Students are then given the medium sized card and have to take the information from the large card and condense it onto the medium sized card.  Finally, students are given the small card and must then take the information from the medium sized card and condense it down either further onto the small card.  This is a great way for students to get to the main point/idea of a selection.

This is a brief biography of Theodore Taylor we glued in our notebooks when we were reading The Cay, one of his awesome books that can be integrated into either the study of South America or Central America or World War II.  It also has great examples of dialect.

This is a foldable on poetry terms.

Notes on figurative language with some color coding to make the notes user friendly.

Poetry notes also color coded to make them easier to use and more helpful.

More poetry notes...notice an example is created with each type of poem so students have a reference point to refer to when needed.  Once I teach poetry, it is fair game to require students to respond to any type of reading in poetry form.  I teach poetry between Thanksgiving and Christmas each year, which gives students an opportunity to use their poetry skills for the whole second semester.

Another page of poetry notes.

Our last page of poetry notes.  Note the "I Am" poem rules taped into student notebooks and then our class example written underneath. 

We used "Winter Morning Poem" and a sheet of generic poetry analysis questions to aid in comprehension.  The questions are taped into the notebook so when students open them, they can see both poem and questions/answers together.

This is just another poem where we were marking the rhyme scheme, lines, and stanzas. 

Awesomeness with a Punch...

A crafty friend of mine made my day when she told me she had a Stampin' Up Round Tab punch that she would sell me!  Sounds crazy, right?  Well...I am quite an organizational nerd and saw a notebook on pinterest (enough said about that) with these cool colored index tabs used in a notebook.  It was like love at first sight and upon digging a little into the "pin" as one must do, I found that these awesome tabs were created with a punch (much like a hole puncher).  So then my mission became finding one.  I checked the Stampin' Up webpage and eBay, but before ordering from either place I put a plea out on facebook.  I knew I had many crafty friends and one responded willing to part with her punch...so now that bad boy is MINE and I am so very excited about it.  I know it is weird or crazy or even uncool to be this excited over an index tab, but I just can't help it - it is one more way for me to help my students get organized. 

Here is my teacher interactive notebook for social studies.  And to the right of my notebook is pure awesomeness in a small little punch.  You can see the shape it makes and then it is folded in half, with a page glued/sandwiched between it, and then labeled.  Like magic, we have the coolest index tabs for our notebooks with little cost.  I have 27 students in each of my classes and was able to punch enough tabs from ONE sheet of cardstock for the entire class!  I think that is just pure genius!

This is just a picture of my amazing punch turned upside down.

My notebook with a close-up of the index tabs in place and labeled.  I am not the best photgrapher, but my phone takes much better pictures than my digital camera.

Student notebooks for social studies with their index tabs in place.  Many of them wouldn't admit it, because it is so uncool, but they pretty much thought these tabs were pretty much as EPIC as I did!

Really?

Really?  That has become our new catch phrase in my class this year.  I suppose it is inevitable since I use that word often all of the time.  I just have to shake my head and laugh about it when I hear a student say it.  At this point in the year, I honestly do not even have a chance to get the word in my brain before one of my students have already uttered it in some sarcastic tone.  I am so glad that they "get" me and my humor - that was a concern when I moved from 7th grade to 6th grade this year (actually not by me, but by a fellow 6th grade teacher).  I did not let it bother me very much, she is a newer teacher and I HAVE taught 2nd and 5th grades prior to middle school.

Anyway, I am going to share one funny from my class right before spring break before I post some more interactive notebook pictures.  I hope you are ready for it...it IS epic and was a proud moment for the sarcastic teacher that I am.

Let me set the stage...I had a female student who was leaving about 1/2 hour early.  We were dismissing at noon that day (and it was my birthday).  Names have been changed to protect the innocent. 

John (boy student):  Sally, please take me with you.
Sally (girl student):  Sorry John, I didn't bring my leash today.
Me:  Laughing out Loud in the back of the room (with the rest of the class) and issuing a proud fist pump or two.

Ok, so now on to more interactive notebooks.  Have I mentioned how much I love these things?  They really have helped keep me focused and centered this year.  I really wish someone would write a book about them to be used in a language arts classroom.

This is a foldable we created on Knots in My Yo-yo String by Jerry Spinelli.  It is from a Dinah Zike book called Notebooking Central Notebook Foldables Strategies for Comprehending and Interacting with Informational Text.

This is just a practice paragraph where each student wrote their own, but the neat thing is the sticky note at the bottom.  I figured out how to print on a couple different sizes of sticky notes.  Each student was given a sticky note to use to check their paragraphs.  Love these!!

This is a window foldable that was created using another Dinah Zike book, Notebook Foldables for Spirals, Binders, & Composition Books.  This was on changing singular nouns to plurals.

This is just a summarization page from out notebooks.  We worked on different summarization strategies for students to use.

Another summarization strategy glued into our notebooks taken from our SIOP training.

And here is another foldable from Dinah Zike for students to use for summarizing.  In addition, I found a story pyramid summary that students can use in their summarization efforts.

 Hope this post has not completely bored you to death.  Stay tuned for more pictures...and details on an AWESOME find that I well...found...to help make students notebooks just a little more organized.  Did I mention how much I LOVE being organized???