Now that students have taken notes in their notebook, what should they do with them? To keep almost all work in the notebook we will interact with notes on the left side of the notebook.
What do you mean the left side?
When you set up your notebook (in part 1) we made sure that odd numbered pages were always on the left and even numbers were on the right. If you have it set up a different way with numbers it's not a big deal just be sure left = interaction and right = notes. This is based on research on the different hemispheres of the brain.
What exactly do students do on the left side?
This is dependent on your content and grade level but I like to think about, "How can I tell they understood their notes?"
Some of my left side interactions are as simple as short comprehension questions. If I gave notes on how to conjugate a verb in Spanish, I could just give them a few sentences to translate to be sure they understood.
I do like to make the left side more creative and engaging since this is the meat of my entire class! I have flip charts, surveys, graphs, pictures, stations, research, and partner work. Anything they can do to show their mastery.
Here is a hand written example, under each flap students wrote examples of making nouns plural.
Here is a digital example - A two-flap chart that compares theme + main idea.
The more you can incorporate hands-on and tactile activities the better, add pictures and coloring too!
Tips and tricks!
Have the instructions printed for students to tape in, I loved to use those label stickers so I could get like 20 on each page. At the very least, print out your instructions and put them in your own teacher notebook. Then when a student is absent they can grab your notebook and have everything they need right there!
Keep it simple, I have tried the wheels, folding books, the accordion foldables and everything in between. They just end up getting destroyed. One time we did a "hack" with a paperclip through the paper that would allow the wheel to turn and it ruined pages and pages of notes. FAIL!
Use what you would do anyways!!! Worksheets, notecards, sticky-notes, stations, anything can be translated to the left-side interaction page.
I can not stress enough that not every page needs to be flaps and tabs and pockets.
Here are some more examples of notes + interaction.
Coming Up... How to grade interactive notebooks! I saved the best for last, this is genius!
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