Help me give my students composition notebooks, scissors, glue, highlighters, and pencils to make their own interactive social studies notebooks for all our notes and writing projects this year.
I teach in the community I was born and raised in, which I love. I recently made a big change and switched from teaching elementary students, second graders, to teaching 7th graders this year. It has been a challenging transition, but I love my students and strive to do all I can to impact their lives in a positive way. The community I live and work in is on an Indian reservation, in Montana. We are greatly impacted by poverty, drug and alcohol addiction, and trauma in many forms. My students have high needs in many areas, both academic and emotional. Montana has the highest suicide rate in our nation, and on our reservation it is 9 times higher than the state. Many of my students have been directly impacted by this.
Coming to class prepared can mean a lot of different things in middle school.
It is just as much mental (attitude, emotions) as it is tangible (having a pencil, paper, etc.) It is a challenging time in their lives, for many different reasons, and I love getting to be a part of their navigation through it.
My Project
This year, to teach 7th Grade Social Studies, I decided Interactive Notebooks would be a fun and efficient way to keep track of our notes, writing projects, art, maps, and everything else we're doing to learn about our state's history. It makes it easier for students to keep track of their work and also gives them ownership of their learning. First, they create their own Interactive Notebook using a simple composition notebook, then each day while studying our text and other materials we take notes, highlight and color code important vocabulary, as well as making foldable graphic organizers that can be glued into the notebook as a "pop-out" study tool. They love this, and it makes what might otherwise be a boring task interactive and engaging.
Making these notebooks requires lots of supplies my students are not able to provide.
And with 140 students, I am not able to purchase them out of my budget. It has been a struggle to get this project going but I am determined to make it happen.
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