I used foldables (flip books) all the time. My main ones are the mutli door ones and the 4 door ones. (I can't think of a much better way to describe them. Multidoor are ones where you fold a piece of paper in half, cut long strips on one side. The 4 door is where you fold both sides of the paper to the middle and cut each side to create 4 doors.) I think it's a super great way to review and put all the information in one place. And they look nice! But my kids are getting tired of them. Every time I go "we're going to make a flip book" they all go "awwwwwwwwwwwww" But I can't think of any other way to organize all the information that's not a chart. For instance, we're doing clouds in 5th grade and I wanted to make a flip book of high, middle, and low clouds. Or we're doing cell parts and I want to make a flipbook of the different organelles. Or climates, or whatever. Any other ideas for a general manipulative that could work for various subjects? :thanks:
Dinah Zike is the goddess of all things foldable and manipulative. Love her stuff! And it works for all grade levels and disciplines, so it's even better.
What about some paint chips for the clouds? I know it's definitely frowned on (and rightly so), to just take a bunch with no intention of buying paint, but both Lowes and Home Depot happily supplied me with a bunch when I said I wanted them for school. You could do Behr strips that have 3 colors and do them all in blue. I bet that would be cute! I also used paint strips to make covers for this book: http://pinterest.com/pin/53269208062916856/ Of course, it's essentially a foldable, but I really like it.
http://teacherweb.com/FL/BelleviewMiddleSchool/MrsVNormand/foldables.pdf This is the one I was looking at! TONS of ideas. It's for "social sciences" but obviously any of them can translate to anything.
Thank you for sharing! I love using these to put in science notebooks. I'll make little lab books for the students to glue into their notebook and they can collect all of their data in one booklet instead of over a few notebook pages. My 3rd graders LOVE them
Thanks for asking-- I love sharing We start the year off by talking about what scientists do- I'll make a starting list of things students do based on suggestions from my students (I write it on poster paper). I try to get them to say "observe" or "look at" and I tell them we'll be doing an activity that observes two materials and what happens when you mix them together- we basically make oobleck (corn starch and water). I then give them their lab book foldable-- I make a neat looking cover (looks all professional- the kids love that) and inside are places for them to draw, list, fill in data tables, and write. We start off by writing down the experimental questions: What do the two materials look like? What happens when you mix the two materials? Then they fill in a T-chart of Material A and Material B based on what they observe-- they can touch, look at, and smell the materials. Of course the kids want to jump to the conclusion "hey this is water" and make some guesses on what the white stuff is (usually they say flour since most do not know about corn starch). We talk about the word "property" and they write the definition down in their lab foldable. Then they'll draw what the materials look like before and after mixing. And then write a sentence for each of the experimental questions as a conclusion. The book is then glued into their science notebook (I leave the back page of the booklet blank for this reason) and they have all the info they need about that activity in there. (We then also add the booklet title to our table of contents with page number and we add the word property into the index with a page number) For my younger students, their booklets are usually just 1 page, but for my older students I can do multiple pages and then I show them how to staple the pages into a book which we do in class to save time (our copier won't do it of course and I don't have the time to sit there and do 40 booklets for my students).
BioAngel- great idea!!! I've used flip books just a few times with my 3rd graders. We made a 3 door flipbook to compare solid, liquid and gas. On the inside of each door they wrote the temperatures, definition and examples.
Dinah Zike has so many things available for all disciplines. If you get a chance, see if your principal can order some of these books for your school's professional library. It's worth asking! A lot of her stuff is available for free online, but I'm all about giving her money through buying her books. She has been a game changer for lots of teachers!
I am loving this post. So many good ideas. I have used the foldover foldable for the scientific method. I know another teacher who uses that same foldable for a math study guide for the year (5th).
