A Tour of our State, A Freebie, & A Little Notebooking

One of my favorite things about 3rd grade (so far) is the study of our beautiful state! At first, it completely stressed me out! Now that I am in my groove, it is so much fun to teach and the kids are all about South Carolina History!

This year, I decided to dive head first into notebooking for all subject areas! Let me tell you…at first, it will make you want to pull your hair out! Teaching third graders about designing their own table of contents was quite a task! Now, it is super smooth and very beneficial!

With that said, I didn’t want for our notebooks to be a bunch of notes that the students will never use. So, I have been trying some different strategies that engage the students in “note taking” and make our notebooks something that are user friendly…even for the parents! Here is a look inside our notebooks.

 

So far, we have included important anchor charts (I take a picture and make a copy for each student), activities, and maps.

   

We also keep a vocabulary pocket for each major unit! I have found that library pockets work perfectly for this section. We write our words on index cards and the students pull them out when they need to reference a certain word.

During our study of the six regions that divide our state, the students were taken on a little tour around each region. Their “souvenir” at the end of each region was two postcards. One to record fast facts from the region and one to write a persuasive letter to someone in the school enticing them to go for a visit. We kept all of our fast facts in our backpack housed in our SC notebooks.

   

For all of my SC people, if you would like a copy of the SC postcards, click on the picture below!

We ended our big study of the regions with a little cookie decorating! The students were given the task to create a cookie that represented all six regions of our state. Mr. King (a.k.a. the hubs) even came to learn all about the regions! I don’t know which surprise they were more excited about…the cookies…or Mr. King! He takes directions from third graders quite well! :)

  

Hard at work…

 

The Finished Products…

I would say it was a success!

I can’t wait to see what else we can get into as we learn about the most beautiful state! Well, I may be a little partial! Happy Sunday, friends!