Interactive Notebooks- A Nonfiction Resource

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I have been using interactive notebooks in my classroom for two years now and I absolutely love them.  I thought I would share how I use them as a nonfiction resource for the students.  I’ve broken things down into 6 posts.  

Today’s post will focus on what are interactive notebooks.

An interactive notebook is a collection of notes about items you have learned about.  You can use spiral-bound notebooks, composition books, or even make your own with construction paper.  Another favorite tool I use are glue sponges.  It saves on the pocketbook (no more glue sticks!) I prefer composition books, but I have no research saying that is the best choice, ha!

IN-supplues

There are many ways you can approach interactive notebooks and many different types.

Interactive Notebooks Presentation types

In my classroom, we make a nonfiction book about all of the themes for the year.  The themes are centered around social studies and science studies.  We are a school that incorporates thematic teaching as well as project-based learning.

We start off the year learning about what an author does in order to make a book.  We learn about the feature of a non-fiction book.  We even have our own table of contents in our interactive notebook.

IN-table-of-contents

My students number their pages and learn how to use a table of contents.  We talk about how our neighbor may have different page numbers than others.  This happens when a student is absent.  They may miss a day that we work in the notebook, so their page numbers may be a day or two off.

We learn about captions and write them for things we have learned about or illustrations we create.

IN-captions

We even have an index!  We start off the year with me giving them a label with the word printed onto it.  Once we get the hang of writing in a smaller space, the kids do it themselves.

Interactive Notebooks Index

Once we have the basics down, we begin building our book and that is the fun part!

Do you already use interactive notebooks?  How do you use them?

Check out my interactive notebook resources.

To read more posts about interactive notebooks, click below.

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