Setting Up Your Interactive Notebook

Here are the ingredients for your interactive notebook:

1. Two standard composition notebooks with 100 sheets (200 pages). These usually measure about 9.75" x 7.5". They are sewn down the middle—you don't want ones that are glued together!
2. Strong tape. Clear packing tape works well. Duck/duct tape is pretty thick, and regular scotch tape isn't strong enough.
3. Scissors.
4. Glue. You'll need regular white school glue, or white tacky glue. Don't use a glue stick.
5. Pen or pencil.
6. A printer and paper. It's okay to use colored paper if you want. If you don't have access to a printer, don't worry! I'll give you what you need at school.
7. Optional: art supplies such as colored pencils, stickers, pictures, scrapbook paper, etc.

Believe it or not, one notebook isn't enough! You're going to need more space.

Take your two notebooks and put them on top of each other. What you're going to do is tape the back cover of the top notebook to the front cover of the bottom notebook. Clear packing tape is the best tape to use for this. You'll want to do it carefully, because wrinkles in the tape will add thickness to your notebook. Trust me, it'll be thick enough as it is once we get started!

You're going to number every page. Yes, seriously.

Here is something important: a "page" means one side of a piece of paper, just like in a book.

Use whatever writing tool you like. Start on the very first page, and number it 1. The back of that page will be page 2. Odd-numbered pages will always be on the right, and even-numbered pages will always be on the left.

When you get to where the two books are taped together, skip over the covers and keep right on going. If you do it right, you will have exactly 400 pages.

I promise, it's not that big of a deal. Just take your time. Do 25 pages, then come back to it another day and do 25 more. 

Page 1 is going to be your title page. You can call this beast anything you wish. I suggest Interactive Notebook. Or Giant Book of Learning. Or Bubba. Okay, maybe not Bubba.

The only requirement is that your first and last name, and your homeroom (7G or 7O), appear on this page. The rest is up to you. Feel free to add drawings, glue in a picture... whatever you want.