Welcome!

Hello and welcome to Liz in the Classroom.  My name is Elizabeth Saxena and I am a 5th and 6th grade Science and Social Studies teacher in Tennessee. 

I have always wanted to do a blog to help teachers. I feel like sometimes the state throws standards at you without any resources to help.   The last couple of years, I have really gotten into the interactive journals and had lots of success with them.  I plan to use this blog to show teachers step by step on how to use interactive journals in the classroom.  I will share resources and other ideas from various sources to show how creative and fun they can be to use while engaging students in learning. The biggest thing I have realized, from using interactive notebooks in the classroom, is you have to get the kids to buy into the idea.  By creating creative and colorful journals, it allows the kids to take ownership of their learning.  I always do a journal ahead of time to show the kids what their page will look like.  This seems to inspire them to want to do better.

Before I get to the interactive notebooks, let me tell you a little about myself.  I have been teaching for 7 years.  I have a Masters in K-6 and in 4-8.  My first job was teaching reading to 6th graders. Now I teach 5th grade Science and Social Studies and 6th grade Science and World History.

I have two of the world's greatest kids, Natalee and Dakota.  (Yes, I am a little biased!)

I recently got married (well, 9 months ago) to the love of my life, Anand.  

We own a bakery and ice cream shop which is an adventure all to itself.

Well, enough about me!  On to more exciting things-interactive notebooks!  

First, this blog is instead to be an outlet for me to help teachers with interactive notebooks.  I welcome additional ideas and comments but, I will not tolerate negativity.  Please be respectful and kind!  After all, this is my first blog and a learning process for me. 

I don't know about your school but, in my school schedules change around a bit the first couple of weeks of school.  This is the perfect time to set up the interactive notebooks.  In the past, I have allowed the kids to bring in pictures about science and social studies to personalize their journal.  They cut them out and we make a modge podge mixture from glue and water and coat the journals to seal the pictures in place.   This brings a great personal touch to a student's journal.  However for this year, I am printing off a scientist for them to color and glue onto the front of their journal.  It will look like this: (P.S. I give girl students a girl scientist and boys a boy scientist.)

In addition, I often found that most students would not write their names in their journal.  I cannot tell you how many times, this past year, I found journals in desks and did not know which class they came from or who was the owner.  To remedy this problem, I am printing printing name tags for each student to glue at the top of their journals.  I am also using wasabi tape to color code each class.  I hope this will help fix the lost journal problem. Please feel free to leave comments if you have other ideas to fix this growing epidemic.  I have read some blogs where teachers do not allow students to take their journals out of their classrooms and have designated baskets for them to keep them in. However, are they really interacting with their notebook if they leave it in the classroom all the time? My students put EVERYTHING in their journals so they can take them home nightly and study.  My students take their journals home to study, read them to their parents,  or explain what they learned for the day.  The student becomes the teacher at home! (More on this topic tomorrow!)

Now, we have the front cover all done!  I am going to stop here for tonight and will talk about the inside set-up in the blog tomorrow.  Thanks for stopping by and I hope you will be back tomorrow!