One of my favorite back to school preparation tasks is completing a fresh interactive notebook setup. Every page is clean, and the notebook still lays flat, even though it is full of promise for the new school year. Every teacher that uses an interactive notebook has their own approach to starting a new notebook, and today I am sharing mine.
Side note: If you are wondering if interactive notebooks are for your and your students, check out my previous post about why I choose to interactive notebooks for high school students.
Reinforce your notebook first
The first thing I do with a new notebook is reinforce the cover. Over the summer, I purchase a bunch of new notebooks from Walmart or Target for fifty cents each. While these notebooks are cost effective, they are not the sturdiest. I take mini-duct tape, called Ducklings by the Duck brand, and line the edges of the front and back cover. For a nice clean look, I like to add paper to the inside of the front and back covers to hide all the information that is printed inside the notebook.
Add your syllabus to your interactive notebook
On the inside front cover, I add an interactive notebook version of my syllabus. Let’s be real for a minute. After slaving over your syllabus to make sure you include all the basic information about your course, you pass out the syllabus during that first week of school, and send it home to maintain for reference. But what actually happens to that syllabus? My guess is no one, not you, not your student, not their parent, will ever see it again. This is why I like to add my syllabus to the front cover when I do my interactive notebook setup. In addition to all the information found in the syllabus, I ensure my students have quick access to my email, class website, and the online textbook. This makes it so that when students ask me for any of this information, I can direct them to their notebooks.
Choose your adhesive wisely
How are you going to make sure everything stays inside the notebook? Many teachers choose glue sticks. The perk is that glue sticks are cost effective, and they (usually) don’t make a mess. The downside? Give it a few months, and papers will start to fall out of the notebook. Although, that may just be my experience.
Some teachers choose tape. Tape is the mess-free option, but it can become expensive. The best solution I’ve come across to prevent students form using all of the tape, is for the teacher to dispense tape to each student. Individually. Who has time for that?
My preferred method for securing papers to my interactive notebook is liquid glue. It is cost effective, but potentially messy. Liquid glue has the ability to glue notebook pages together. The key to using liquid glue is training your students. I teach my students at the beginning of the year to use 4 dots. We place one glue dot in each corner, not too close to the edge. The liquid glue keeps the papers in the notebook all year long, and we have plenty of the glue for the year. (I also keep a gallon jug of glue on hand just in case.)
When setting up your interactive notebook, put your most frequently referenced content front and center
Is there pertinent information for your course that you want at your student’s fingertips all year long? I considered this for my students, and created a reference sheet of symbols and properties for my geometry students. I glue this sheet onto the first page when I setup my interactive notebook.
Another thing I find important is having a growth mindset. On the next page of the notebook, we add our growth mindset questionnaire. During our first week together, students take a questionnaire, determine their results, and we discuss growth and fixed mindsets, and how we can develop growth mindsets. I add this to the second page of my interactive notebook.
Setup pocket page dividers
One of my favorite features to setup in interactive notebooks is the pocket page divider. As the name suggests, it serves two purposes. It divides pages of the notebook. This makes it easier to find different sections of the notebook. I divide my notebooks by unit. It also creates a pocket. When done correctly, the pocket will easily fit folded papers. This is great for students that want to keep their homework in their notebooks. I also encourage students to keep their exit tickets, practice worksheets, and assessments in the pocket pages as well. I first learned about pocket pages from this blog.
Add an interactive notebook table of contents
After each pocket page, I add a table of contents. This is an alternative to having a few pages at the front of the notebook set aside for the table of contents. I find it is easier to maintain the table of contents when it is separated by unit, rather than having one long table of contents for the entire notebook.
Include your interactive notebook rubric right away
The last thing I add when I first setup an interactive notebook for a new school year is the rubric. I like to provide the rubric immediately. It helps me set expectations for my students. My criteria for notebooks is that the table of contents is filled in, every page has a page number and heading, and that all the content pages are added and complete. I grade the notebooks at the end of each unit during the unit test. We add the rubric to the back page and inside the back cover.
Want to see how I setup my interactive notebook?
If you want more information about how I setup my interactive notebook for back to school, check out the video below.
Download Free Copies of These Interactive Notebook Setup Pages
Follow this link to get your free copy of the interactive notebook pages shown in this post! The download includes: Interactive Notebook Syllabus template, Geometry Symbols, Properties, & Postulates page, Growth Mindset Survey (adapted from Math = Love), Table of Contents page, and Interactive Notebook Rubric.
If you’re looking for more information about using Interactive Notebooks, check out Amy’s Blog Post: 3 Strategies for Latin Interactive Notebooks.
