A couple weeks ago I was going through some binders on a top shelf in my office, trying to purge in order to have space and stay current. Anyway, I ran across three black binders filled with my transparencies of the pages of the Grammar Notebook. Years ago, during my overhead projector days, I created the grammar notebook with my students by modeling everything on those transparencies. The stuff that never changed from one year to the next was written in permanent marker; the stuff that would be unique each year was written in washable pen.
It was pretty neat to see what is still the same, what I have tweaked over the years, and what I’ve expanded. And I could see how the increase in my depth of knowledge has changed things. How true it is– we never stop learning!!
Well, shortly after looking through these binders, I was sharing about them and a teacher remarked, “Wow, you did interactive notebooks back then?” I had to smile. And no, I will not say whether I smiled because she was surprised we did interactive notebooks or I smiled because she said “back then.” (I’m still smiling.)
The idea of interactive notebooks is not new. I have found evidence of it in 19th century teaching materials.
Oh, in case you’re wondering, those three notebooks are still on my shelf. They are the history behind my Grammar Applications with the how-to anchor lessons and Grammar Graphics, the visuals to build interactive grammar notebooks. They are the first seeds to my Alice Nine Academy lessons for blended instruction.
a transparency in my old grammar notebook
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