Throwback Thursday: Math Journals

It's Thursday, and I've had kids for 5 full days now!  I decided to do a little TBT post to my most popular MMI post.  I spent last weekend making my math journals for this year and I've actually added a cover for this year!  Enjoy!

It's Monday and the start of my first full week with kids!  It's time for another link up with Tara from 4th Grade Frolics!

I always try to get a picture of each of my students on the first couple of days of school.  Well my camera has been MIA this week so I couldn't take my pictures last week.  I figured oh well, that gives me the weekend to make a cute picture frame for them to hold for their pictures. I'm sure we've all seen a variety of versions of the picture below floating around on Pinterest and other blogs.

Well since I missed the first day of school, I made my frame to just say 4th Grade. I have been trying to use things I have at home instead of always going and buying stuff. I took an old chalkboard with frame that we used for Christmas pictures a couple of years ago and decided it would work great for this project!

I took the chalkboard out and painted the frame to match my classroom.  Then I used my handy dandy Cricut to cut out the letters in teal vinyl.  They went on so easy and to keep everything in place I painted a thin coat of modge podge over the whole thing. Here is the final product!

Next, I have my math notebooks.  I started using interactive notebooks when I taught 3rd grade reading.  I really enjoyed using them and the kids did, too!  Last year I knew I wanted to use them again, but there had to be some changes made so that I could use them for math.  We didn't and still don't have a Common Core text book, so these notebooks take the place of a text book.  It was tax free weekend here, so I went and picked up some extra composition notebooks to get ready for the kids to make their interactive notebooks for this year.  I explored A LOT on the pros and cons of using spiral vs. composition notebooks.  I've always used composition notebooks in the past and decided to stick to it this year.

 

Here is how I put them together.  I use two notebooks, stapling the back cover of the first to the front cover of the second.Then I use Duck Tape to hold the two notebooks together.  My wonderful hubby usually helps me put all of these together! After the notebooks are put together, I glue a piece of ribbon in the back for the kids to use a bookmark.  This worked great last year.  I use a different colored ribbon for each class so I can easily identify where it goes if it gets left somewhere.

We will spend part of class this week decorating our notebooks.  I want the kids to feel like they are personalized to them.  I keep separate notebooks for each class because I model the notes and problems for each class.

One last MMI for this week is this little pillow!  I've had it for a couple of years and it didn't match my room any more.  I decided to get out the sewing machine and make a little cover for it to match the rest of my room!  I think it turned out so cute!