Interactive Notebooks: a fancy name for lap books?

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

I'm seeing these pop up on pinterest more and more, and I have to admit, I like the idea of guiding a student through a nicely organized and brightly colored note page... assuming the information is not just "fluff".  

 

Has anyone given these a try, and how are you liking them?

 

Have you purchased them from Teachers pay Teachers, or do you just wing it from images you find online?  

[MyLife]

My son makes an interactive notebook for history, in chronological order. We do not purchase the interactive notebooks from TpT. We use free timeline images found online, images from the VP teacher's manual, and a few things from History Pockets.

 

Essentiality, it is a spiral bound notebook that he adds information and images in chronological order, but there is an interactive aspect to it, such as a flap to lift or a book to fold out.

[Dmmetler]

My DD's bio teacher is doing a lot of that stuff, mostly from Teachers Pay Teachers. For some of the kids, it helps. For my DD, it's annoying-she would rather just take notes. Or, as she puts it "if it requires scissors, a glue stick, and colored pencils. It's NOT science!!". I will say, though, that she's working on the 25 page end of section review, and is finding it quite easy to find the content to review it, so I guess it's useful there.

[MyLife]

One more thing, search "free notebook foldables" or "free interactive notebook templates." We try to keep it simple around here.

[Miss Tick]

I liked the *idea* of those, thinking they would be a good middle road between my dd who would enjoy more crafts in our life, and ds who would prefer no cutting, gluing, or writing of any kind. However, like everything else I touch, I couldn't quite find one that did exactly what I wanted. I put together some for the last two years of SOTW (after the laobooks ended). They became progressively less "interactive" though.

 

I've looked at them again for geometry for much the same reason and thinking we could do it over the summer or as a co-op class without some people freaking it about it being MORE MATH. Same problem with the TpT thing - not quiiiite what I want.

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

Thanks to all for your help and experience.  

 

I think the flip ups type things are cool looking, but realistically, I don't see me getting that stuff printed, cut, colored, pasted...  ugh.  

 

The ones I really like are the nicely formatted notebook pages that are colorful, but all hand-drawn and organized.  Here are some examples:

 

 

I think I need to just take these as inspiration and go from there.  

[Jess4879]

We recently bought greek/latin roots, grammar & literature INBs from TpT.  (https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Lovin-Lit )  I absolutely love her books and couldn't be bothered to try to find all that info via google searches, so it was worth the cost for me.  

The kids were very excited when I showed them the samples, but they have yet to get any colored and put in their notebooks.  That being said, we have just started and I still think they will be a really great tool once we get going with them.  What I probably really need is someone to make them for me and then just present them to the kids, which would, of course, totally defeat the purpose.  LOL

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

We recently bought greek/latin roots, grammar & literature INBs from TpT.  (https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Lovin-Lit )  I absolutely love her books and couldn't be bothered to try to find all that info via google searches, so it was worth the cost for me.  

The kids were very excited when I showed them the samples, but they have yet to get any colored and put in their notebooks.  That being said, we have just started and I still think they will be a really great tool once we get going with them.  What I probably really need is someone to make them for me and then just present them to the kids, which would, of course, totally defeat the purpose.  LOL

 

 

Aaaand... added to cart....  

[Miss Tick]

I agree that I like the beautiful drawings, but then I felt like I had to pre-make my own example notebook in order to know what pictures fit where and further convinced everyone to replicate my example... Control issues!

[kbutton]

Google doodle notes--that might be more what you are looking for.

 

My son has enjoyed the less elaborate INB pages that are more notetaking and less flip book--they might have a cutting component, but it more like cutting slits to open something that has one fold. Also the ones we like have the student do the writing. For him, this is good because it's note-taking in short-cut (dysgraphia). We have used some INB pages from the Math = Love blog. You basically assemble a math reference book of things you've learned over time. She uses definitions, examples, and the like for her notebooks. She has some procedures and some conceptual information. If you need graphing information, she has TONS of graphing stuff. Anyway, if you don't need math, it could inspire you for how you'd like to set up really simple INB pages for other subjects. 

 

 

Thanks to all for your help and experience.  

 

I think the flip ups type things are cool looking, but realistically, I don't see me getting that stuff printed, cut, colored, pasted...  ugh.  

 

The ones I really like are the nicely formatted notebook pages that are colorful, but all hand-drawn and organized.  Here are some examples:

 

 

I think I need to just take these as inspiration and go from there.