Interactive Notebooks.. Oh, and a Flash Freebie Alert!

When I first found out that I was going to be a 4th grade teacher, I was filled with all sorts of emotions: excited, nervous, overwhelmed, challenged... I could go on.

I am teaching Texas History and Science and really want to help lead my students to truly love these subjects. For starters, I hated history as young kid. I remember I had to study for a test and called my Grams  (in California) pleading with her to tell my mom to not make me study. I cried and tried to plead my case with  her, "It's just a bunch of stuff about dead old white guys!"... Needless to say, she gave me an earful.. I studied and did well, but just thought of it as facts and dates until I had this AMAZING  history teacher in High School...

For those of y'all in Texas, you know that *most* history classes are usually taught by a coach.. Now, I'm sure there are amazing coaches and history teachers but at my school,  my freshman year's teacher was typically worried about drawing up his next football play, rather than teaching.. But somehow, I ended up in this class my sophomore year  and had this amazing guru.. It was then,  that year, I  began my love affair with history. He told history as a story full of adventure, drama, romance and of course war. It was like all of my favorite movies in one time period. He has us create these interactive notebooks where we colored and drew pictures, bolded words and highlighted others. We created 'left sides' where we as students demonstrated our learning in a creative way. It challenged me to think 'outside the book' and highlighted by creativity.

This summer, I decided let's approach teaching this year differently. I don't want to be that teacher who constantly has students reading from books and doing worksheets (there is nothing wrong with that) but it's not for me. Just because we have our hands on doesn't mean our minds are off. I want to start my students off early on their love affair or at least give them a taste of how cool history and science can be... So, I did some research, started turning my wheels, and voila... I have the foundation for my Interactive Notebook. For those that want a sneak peak and a freebie head over to my store... Interactive Notebook

I hope that it helps inspire to teach more 'colorfully'.