Using Interactive Notebooks in Math

Last spring and over the summer I kept seeing posts online about using Interactive Notebooks (IN) in math, I was interested and decided to implement them this school year.  As I was reading I took a lot of notes and meshed a whole bunch of different ideas to figure out what I was going to do...then the school year came around and I realized that I needed to do what works best for me and my students when it comes to their IN.

A lot of people had posted about using the left side of a page for one purpose and the right side for another based on brain research, while that made sense to me, I didn't want our entire math time together to be focused on their notes, but I want to prepare them for future math classes to know how to take notes that they can use.  Instead of using two pages for a concept we use one page, we have a table of contents, page numbers, and we use foldables...lots of colored foldables.

Interactive Notes for "Operations with Decimals"

The students enjoy building their IN each day and reference them throughout the class when they are working on independent work.  When it comes time for assessments, I have them complete what they can on their own in pencil and then they can get out their IN and complete the rest in pen using their notes.  I didn't plan to let them use their notes at all, but they will be able to use notes in future math classes on some assessments so I want them to have that skill.

I usually teach my mini-lesson to the students as they are filling out their IN notes.  The questions that they have come up as they are working on their notes and then I work with them independently on skills and in small groups.  Although we are only a few weeks into the school year, I am SO glad that I decided to use INs this year! You can access my Interactive Notebook notes and foldables here if you are interested.