7 Math Interactive Notebook Foldables

"Miss, why are we cutting and pasting? Do you think we're babies?"

Then within a few weeks, my consumer math seniors would be pretty into building their interactive notebooks. And not one student lost a notebook over the years. I believe this ownership was built along with the cutting, coloring, arranging and pasting. Their notebooks became something my students didn't want to lose because of all the work they represented. Though the cutting and pasting does take more time than typical math notes, I feel this tradeoff is well worth it. 

Linear equations foldables

Do your students enjoy building interactive notebooks? Or maybe you haven't yet tried them and are interested in learning about the benefits. To me, that ownership is the main benefit. Kids like and deserve getting creative, and math is a good a place as any for a little creativity. 

In this post, I want to show you some of the interactive notebook foldables I've made over the years for students of all ages. They can all stand alone as flipbooks. Each comes together with scissors and a stapler. 

Spanish Math Word Walls

By August 2021, the printable versions of every math word wall will be updated to include Spanish vocabulary. Above is a photo of how the Spanish math words look alongside their English counterparts.

August 28, 2021 UPDATE: Every math word wall now includes Spanish vocabulary. 

Graphing Linear Equations and Inequalities Cheat Sheets

At some point I will update this post with videos on how to graph linear equations and inequalities, but for now (and maybe to put the pressure on myself to get those videos done soon), I wanted to at least share the two cheat sheets I've made recently for these two topics.

How to send a digital word wall to students

Over the years, I've written a lot about math word walls and how strongly I feel about them. My teaching changed with the addition of math vocabulary references to our classroom walls, and I have so enjoyed all the great feedback from teachers abut the same being true in their classrooms. 

How-to Guide to Attacking Word Problems

Word problems confessional: I dread teaching them. They're one of those things I have had a hard time teaching. My personal word problem solving technique, if you can even call it that, goes something like: "Read it over and over and over again until it makes sense, cross out words I don't like because they're unnecessary and I don't like that they were added as a distraction, read it again, imagine myself in the problem, pull out the numbers, make them into an equation, does the equation make sense?, solve it, does the solution make sense?" How could I ever teach this? It's a heaping disaster!

Word problems don't all fit into the same neat little box. There is no one graphic organizer, or magical online math word problems solver, that works well for all word problems. Each word problem is completely unique. This has always felt so incredibly messy to me when it comes to teaching word problems. 

But this all changed when I came across this paper on George Pólya's Problem Solving Techniques. There are no graphic organizers, there is no overarching goal to fit everything into neat little boxes on a 1-pager. The messiness is expected and embraced and a welcomed part of it all. If you haven't heard of George Pólya's problem solving technique, here is a partial summary:

Mathematicians look like all of us project

Like so many awesome math teachers, I met Megan McLean through social media at some point over the last few years. Megan is a teacher all the way on the other side of the US, and with the help of Instagram, I get to feel like she is my colleague next door. Over the last few months, Megan has been researching mathematicians from all over the world and collecting their stories into her Instagram account @mathematicianslooklikeallofus. This post highlights a small sliver of the mathematicians she has found and also links to where we can learn more. Here is Megan's guest post on the work she has done so far on this important project. Megan has also started the blog Mathematicians Look Like All of Us.

Guest post by Megan McLean

@mathematicianslooklikeallofus

Digital Math Escape Rooms

Whether your students are working together or independently, online or in-person, I wanted to make some super-engaging, no-prep digital math escape room activities that are both fun for students and eliminate your need to grade. These new self-checking digital math escape rooms are built in Google Forms with no outside links. The directions are simple -- enter a 4-letter code to advance to the next puzzle -- so students can focus all of their energy on their math.

Adding and subtracting integers digital math escape room

Digital Math Escape Rooms

Because of the need for digital resources, I have updated many of my printable math materials to also include links to digital versions. (You can see those here.) I have also been creating some digital-only math activities to work in Google Slides and Google Forms. One of the newest activity types in Google Forms are these digital math escape rooms.

Here’s some great feedback from teachers about these new digital math escape rooms: 

How to Move a File From One Google Drive to Another

Have you ever downloaded a Google file for school, only to have it get "stuck" in your home Google Drive? Or maybe a file you'd like in your home Google Drive won't seem to budge from your school Drive? 

Below are simple directions for how to move a file from one Google Drive to another. I'll use the example of how to move a file from a school Google Drive to a personal Google Drive because I have gotten this question a lot!