Math Journal Sundays ... Kicked Up A Notch

This post is dedicated to Mor over at A Teacher's Treasure.  Last weekend I watched her video on Interactive Student Notebooks (click on the link to check it out for yourself) ... and I was so inspired I knew I couldn't wait to "kick it up a notch" again in my math journals.  This was the piece I was missing in my math journals - and before I watched the video I didn't even realize I was missing something.  Her interactive student notebooks are based on the right side and left side pages.  The students' right side of the notebooks all contain the same information (direct from the teacher).  The left side of the notebook contains the students' thinking, knowledge, and reflection on the lesson.  She has a terrific resource packed with over 100 templates for "left side of the page thinking".  You can see it by clicking here (and it's even on sale right now!).

I couldn't wait until September to start using the ideas in her fabulous resource, so we started using her strategies this week.  On Monday we were learning about Order of Operations.  I took them outside for a fun order of operations hopscotch, then we used the sidewalk chalk to fill the basketball court with problems and solutions.  You can read my post about it here.  So of course, we needed a foldable to go along with our new knowledge.  I needed it to be quick and easy because I wanted to spend time discussing our new "left side" thinking.  So, quick and easy it was.  We used sticky notes and arranged them in a hopscotch pattern (to tie in our outside activity).  Underneath each sticky note was the word for each step (under the "B" was brackets).  I added a little extra information (including our learning goal) for them to copy, and that was that.

This is the left side of the journals.  Students rewrite the learning goal from the right side of the page (in student-friendly language).  Then they write "What I Know".  We do this before we do the lesson (it's highlighted in green to show that now we can "go" on with the rest of the lesson).  After the lesson they write "What I Learned", "Proof" (where I want them to write a problem and solve it), and then a "Reflection" - this one is completely up to them - they can reflect on and show their learning in ANY way they want.  This particular student wrote a mnemonic device for memorizing the steps to order of operations.

After our test midweek, we started our next unit.  This short unit encompasses angles, triangles, and polygons.  We started with angles.  I wanted to do a fun, interactive element to our journals, so we made angles using two coloured pieces of construction paper cut into arrows, and attached them to our pages with a brass fastener.  I had them glue the bottom arrow to the page, leaving the second arrow free to move into whatever angle needed.  We practiced how to measure an angle, then I had them create angles of various degrees.  The red colour made it very easy for me to see who had the concept right away, and who needed a little extra assistance.

We added a foldable underneath our interactive angle tool.  It was a three fold foldable.  We wrote the titles of the angles on the outside.  Underneath each flap we had a diagram of the angle, a definition, and examples from the classroom.  The students really enjoyed finding the different examples in the classroom.

The students also completed a "left side" for this activity, too.  For the reflection, a lot of my students completed a picture of some sort of picture with the different angles labelled.  But one of my favourite reflections was this girl who wrote a little song to remember the different angles.



















I'm so excited about the evolution of my math journals!!!  My mind is already swimming with ideas for next year.  Thank-you SO much, Mor!

Happy Sunday!!!

Interactive Math Journal

Interactive Math Journal 2

Building Better Math Responses

Math Concept Posters

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