Why interactive notebooks

About half way through last year I decided to jump full force into interactive notebooks with little knowledge on what I was getting myself into. I am the type of person who likes routines and tends to lean on the overly organized side of life. So to have this sudden change is not me at all, but I have reasons to back up why I switched to interactive notebooks. 

Background

Previously, I had students keep their notes in their binder under my tab...L.A. This system worked well until around October and then came the excuses...which I hate!

Miss I lost my notes

I can't find that piece of paper

Do you have an extra vocab list

I left that at home

I think I threw that away

I thought we didn't need that anymore

When did we do that

Can I have another one of that

I don't think I was here that day

I was supposed to keep that

I blew my nose with my notes

(sadly this has happened)

Fast Forward

I guess you can say I snapped because I was approaching a poetry unit where students were going to have pieces of paper coming out of their ears: notes, poetry dissection and writing their own poems. Too many papers to be lost! Thankfully, I had scooped up a bunch of spiral notebooks when they were a penny to hand out to students who could not bring their own.

Today...

I am loving, loving, loving interactive notebooks. They are my saving grace to monitoring each classes progress as well as individual students. I no longer hear the endless excuses from students losing their notes. Through the use of interactive notebooks students are held accountable during each lesson making sure each task is complete. Students can also look back on what they have done throughout the year to see how far they have come!

 My OCD has found its happy place in the form of a spiral notebook.

Stick around to find out other helpful hints on interactive notebook goodness.