What if you could turn any worksheet into an interactive notebook activity? What if you could turn any worksheet into an interactive activity? Would it make a difference in your class?
Let’s be honest, worksheets are sometimes not fun. Sometimes, the worksheets are necessary, other times, the presence of it just spells ‘boring’ for the students. There are some instances when as a teacher, you need to know what kids know, or help reinforce a particular topic or concept , so the most reliable way is to hand them a worksheet to exercise their skills.
You can also turn the worksheets for kids into something fun and something that would require no extra prep time.
Interactive Notebooks:
Interactive notebooks are all the rage right now. We all know that when students interact with learning in various ways (visually, kinesthetically, orally, etc) the information seems to stick with them better.
I have a few interactive notebook products in my TpT store with pretty easy foldables for students to use.
My interactive notebook philosophy is that if students can quickly assemble the flipbook, it is worth the extra two minutes that it takes to cut and glue it into their notebook.
The more complicated the flipbook, the more valuable minutes of instruction are used. Do I really want to spend 10 minutes while the kids cut out a pocket and a bunch of tiny little cards to fit in it and glue it into their notebook only so the pieces get lost a few days later? Nope…although I will agree that those pockets do look adorable. I just like to keep it simple while still allowing the students to get that kinesthetic movement in, which they desperately need. Who wants to be sitting and writing all day? I sure don’t!
Where I Learned How to Turn Any Worksheet into an Interactive Notebook Activity:
Well, one of my customers and Facebook followers graciously shared with me how she uses some of my products, not originally intended to be for interactive notebooks, in her students’ interactive notebooks.
What she did was take the reading comprehension pages from my Animals unit, reduced it by 80% on the copy machine, and had her students cut and glue it into their science notebooks. They highlighted the important parts of the reading passage and completed the diagram at the bottom.
Now, trimming the edges to fit this into the notebook and gluing it probably took all of 2 minutes, but it will serve as a great reference to the students throughout their animals unit.
Using this strategy, you could turn any worksheet into an interactive activity, you could take any worksheets you have in your classroom, reduce it, and have students use it in their notebooks.
How To Turn any Worksheet into an Interactive Notebook Activity:
1. Print and cut the Worksheets:
Choose your desired worksheets, print/copy them and cut your items into sets and bundle them.
2. Hand the cut worksheets to your students:
Pass them out to students to glue to their notebooks and use as activities, practice, and reference guides to support your lessons.
Worksheets are still valuable, Interactive Notebooks are fun and engaging
Worksheets are a valuable resource in checking a student’s mastery level of skill. There is nothing wrong with using them. But if you find that they are boring out your students, you can turn them into interactive notebooks.
There are so many different ways you use interactive notebooks with your students. They love them, are engaged, and as a result, have a notebook filled with rich content that will help them throughout the year.
This is just another example of how you can make interactive notebooks if you have limited time.
If you’re interested in the unit where the above example was taken from, you can take a look at it in my Teachers Pay Teachers store or HERE.
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