I am so excited to share my newest creation with you, my Soil Interactive Notebooks! In third-grade, one of our science units is soil. Ugh. Literally my least favorite subject to teach ever. My room is always covered in dirt and mud for our experiments. Soil, in my very humble opinion, is not just that interesting compared to all our other fun units like life cycles and earth’s cycles.

Anyway, I am a newfound lover of interactive notebooks. They are fun and remind me of scrapbooks. I recently learned how to create my own, and now I am an interactive notebook addict. My name is Kelly, and I am way too into interactive notebooks.

You may have already guessed from what I wrote above, but I hate dirt. I hate clutter. I hate stuff everywhere. Needless to say, I normally am not a fan of cutting and pasting in my classroom. Interactive notebooks I tried in the past unfortunately had too much cutting. For example, cutting an accordion of hearts. Accordion hearts are CUTE, but when it comes to my 8-year-olds, cutting accordion hearts is ultimately a waste of time. For my interactive notebooks, I chose sizes and shapes that are simple to cut yet still engaging to look at and flip open.

My students LOVE these interactive notebooks. I was surprised to find that they enjoy the cutting, the gluing, the coloring, and having them as a reference point. I am a big proponent of “no wasted time,” so I don’t give my kiddos much time to color during science. I find that most of my kids want their notebooks colored, so they will take them home at night or use our 15 minutes of Quiet Time to make them look perfect. It is like a self-directed art project!

These notebooks are just fun, and an awesome visual for information. Look at the Components of Soil star. All the information needed to know is there, but it is in a fun and appealing look for the kids. The points of the star are movable, it folds up. The soil erosion causes box folds up as well, and it is an easy way to look at and understand information. Basically these books are one big visual organizer in one spot!

Do you use interactive notebooks in your classroom? Do you have any tips on how they are best integrated in your room?

If you’re interested in looking at my soil interactive notebooks, feel free to take a peek at them here!