The Math Notebook Begins

I decided to try to do a math notebook this year. Last year I just had the students write down notes and examples either in a notebook or on loose paper and it wasn't very organized or fun. I really like the idea of making the math notebook fun so I'm going to try to incorporate foldables and colors so that they might be more likely to hold on to the notebook for future reference. After all, the 8th grade material does jump start them for high school.

So I've found a couple different ideas so far:
1)Notebook guidelines from  Frogs and Cupcakes Blog
2) The idea to decorate the notebooks from create-share-inspire

Here's what my notebook looks like:

I used a spiral notebook that is 5-subject and 180 pages in it. I asked my students from last year how many pages of notes and homework they thought they used and 180 seemed to be the right number for the year. I got scrapbook paper and decorated it. I think it turned out cute and hopefully the students think decorating them is fun.

I glued the guidelines in the front cover.

 I love how there is space to sign them. It makes it seem more official.

The first page will be the table of contents.

Excuse the shadow please. I drew a line down the middle because I only planed one page for the table of contents so this given them double the space to write where things are located. 

Then the first section of the notebook will be warm-ups.

The students will have a warm-up every day so they needed a good chunk of the notebook for this. The warm-up section took up the first subject of the 5 subject notebook. I did have to glue in one piece of paper onto the subject divider so that each week has two pages open.

I also went through and numbered the pages last night. It took me quite a while to number all the way through so I'm not sure if I'll have my students number ahead of time or just as we go. I'm leaning towards the latter just because I think it will be easier for them.

Since the first full day of school this year is on a Friday, I think it may be a good day to decorate them if we get through with classroom rules and procedures.

Well, I'm excited to start this blog. It will be a good place to keep all my thoughts and activities so I can remember what in the world I am doing. :]