Interactive Math Notebooks: MISSION DIFFERENTIATION

I absolutely love interactive notebooks. I’ve used them in my room ever since I started teaching. A lot of the time I use foldables and notebook activities to review concepts at the end of the lesson. I can quickly walk around and see how some students are doing and what they understood. Sometimes, we complete activities whole-group and take notes that students can refer back to. As I’m sure you know, it doesn’t matter how I’m using them or what I’m teaching, there are always students on different levels.

When I was using the exact same activity for everyone, I would have to race around the room making sure the lower buddies got all the support and scaffolding they needed while the higher kiddos were getting the extension to challenge them. By the end of the lesson my feet and brain were tired!

Then…Lightbulb! Why not create leveled foldables and interactive notebook activities ahead of time.

Yes….Yes! This would help my poor feet (and probably make my “teaching slippers” a little less stinky). I got right to work and now, many weeks of procrastination later, I have 8 activities to help me jumpstart math at the beginning of the year. I created 4 place value activities, 2 rounding activities, and 2 comparing activities.

The best part is that each of the 8 activities has 3 versions! No more running around trying to differentiate on the spot. I can simply give the lower students the circle sheets, the on-target students the triangle sheets, and the advanced students the star sheets. Each level looks exactly the same, it just varies in difficulty.
Take a look:

I teach third grade, but because of the leveling this is something that I think would comfortably work with grades 2-4. I hope this is something you will be able to use. I am so excited to try these out in my classroom and create even more for our units throughout the year! To check it out, head over to my TPT store. I will return and update the post when I get some real-life pictures of the activities!

Don’t forget to ENTER MY GIVEAWAY! I am giving away $10 TPT cash that you will be able to use for the big sale and an interactive notebook bundle of your choosing from my store. There will be one winner for each of the prizes. You only have until midnight so head over now!