These are a couple of the interactive notebook pages my class used when we were studying measurement of circles. Students so often get mixed up about the formulas for circumference and area. I think having the notebooks as a reference this year helped them. For the area page the students used the grids on the circle to estimate. (The radius wasn't labeled on the circle yet because I didn't want those who knew the formula to use it at this point.) They counted units squared and the estimation really came in when they had to combine the partial squares to come up with the whole area. The students shared their estimates with the class. Next they had to determine the radius and label it on the circle. We used the formula to calculate the area of the circle and talked about who had come the closest with their estimate.

To create the circle with the grid:

1. Inserted an image of a grid in a Word document then clicked on it to format the picture.
   
2. In the Picture Styles I chose the oval. 
   
3. To make it a circle, I changed the size so that the height and width were equal. You may need to change the aspect ratio. Click the little arrow button next to the height and width to open the menu for Layout. Go to the Size tab. Uncheck the box that says "lock aspect ratio." Then you should be able to fix the height and width to the same size.
   
4. If your picture has a shadow underneath it you could leave it there if your students are cutting out the circle anyway. I removed it from mine by clicking on Picture Effects and on the Shadow option I selected No Shadow.
   
5. I copied and pasted the picture as many times as would fit on one page to save copies and printed them on colored paper to make the activity stand out in the notebook.
   

In an earlier post I wrote about my 7th grade math interactive notebook pages on triangles. The pages on this post continued our study of polygon properties and angle measurements. To begin, we defined the term and used a T-chart to write properties and draw examples and non-examples of polygons. We also defined regular polygons which we used in the chart on the next two pages. 

As you will notice I don't always stick to the idea of putting information on the right page and student reflection on the left. Sometimes, I just have more to show them than that, and sometimes I have more reflecting and practicing for them to do than will fit on one page.

On the next two pages we made a chart of polygons. There are columns for the number of sides and angles, the polygon name, and sketches of the polygon. Drawing regular polygons would be difficult, so I copied them for us to cut out and glue on the chart. At the end of this post there is information about the book where I got the page I copied.

As I mentioned above, before this lesson we had studied the measurement of the interior angles of triangles and quadrilaterals. Earlier in the year my 8th grade math class created  "Geome-TREEs" using two pages of their notebooks. Because of spacing for the pages in this class, the 7th graders only used one page, and I made a couple tweaks to improve the quadrilateral tree. We connected the kite to the rhombus and square using the kite tail because both of these figures are also kites. Click on the link to see my original post and description of the "Geome-TREEs."

The students used their knowledge of the measurement of the interior angles of triangles and quadrilaterals to help determine the measurement of the interior angles of a regular pentagon. I loved to see my students flip back and use pages they created in their notebooks to help them with the new lesson. One of my favorite parts of using these notebooks is watching them actually use the pages as a reference.


Our textbook also introduces tessellations at this point, so I included the definition on this page. It ties the polygon lessons with the notebook entries for transformations.

Classifying Triangles: When one of my math classes was studying the names of polygons, their properties, and the measurement of their interior angles we made several entries in our interactive notebooks. We made this T-chart to review the classification of triangles by their sides and angles. We folded the triangles over and glued them on the chart. On the outside we wrote the names of each type of triangle and on the inside the students wrote the properties for each type of triangle. 
Download the template for free below!

Writing in Math: To reflect on the classification of triangles and lead into the concept of the measurement of the interior angles of a triangle students were asked to write whether or not a triangle could have two right angles. They also had to draw a representation to show reasoning and proof of their response. 

Triangle Interior Angle Measurement:   In past years I've used a piece of construction paper to model this for the class. I cut a diagonal to make a triangle. I would tear off each angle and put them together on the board or digital projector to demonstrate that the angles, when put together, make a line which is 180 degrees. Since I have been developing interactive notebooks with my classes this year I wanted them to have this activity glued in their notebooks.

I decided to  use 3 different types of triangles to demonstrate that it is true for all of them. I made two of each triangle so they could see the original as well as the triangle with the angles removed and glued together. The activity went really well in class and was a great visual reminder for other angle measurement concepts we studied later in the chapter.

When I taught at a charter school in Oklahoma one of my responsibilities was to accompany the middle school students as they went through the DoD Starbase program. It was a great hands-on learning experience for the students. We went once a week and each time they did activities that sparked their interest in STEM. Our culminating activity was shooting rockets they had made off the tarmac of the Air National Guard base. The curriculum they use has been updated since then, but in the old version there was an activity where the students were given a drawing of an F-16 with points labeled to measure and draw an image with a 1:2 scale. I have used this activity with my students every year since then.

The students are given instructions to follow so they can keep track of which line segments have been measured and can do them in a logical order. This year with my 8th graders I decided to put them in pairs and give them different scales to work with. I had various sizes of grid paper available for the students to use. (In the past I have taped sheets of graph paper together to make larger pieces.) They drew the images with 1:.5, 1:2, 1:3, and 1:4 scales. Having them complete the project in pairs worked out great as they problem solved together. I would walk around and spot check some of their measurements as they worked because a mistake on even one measurement can throw off the rest of the drawing. 

Once the students finish the scale drawing I allow them to design the jet however they would like. To grade the project, I choose several line segments to measure and grade for accuracy.

This week I started new chapters in almost all of my classes. Overwhelming! Because my 7th and 8th grade math classes are both in geometry units I decided to start them off with some vocabulary activities. There are over 30 vocabulary terms for each class. We made vocabulary booklets to staple into their interactive notebooks.  When I told them what we were doing, the 7th graders started laughing because we've done this activity before and there was a little mishap. I had to go on emergency leave at the beginning of the year and created these booklet templates for the sub to have my geography class do while I was gone. When I got back and looked at their work I realized they had done the wrong chapter. Oops! They had to start all over. So glad they can laugh about it :) One of my classes was unusually quiet as they worked on their booklets. When I walked around I could see that they were all concentrating on making detailed and really fantastic illustrations. So proud!

FREE STUFF! You can download a copy of the template. Some students chose to cut theirs on the dotted lines and others wanted to cut around the curves of the frames. That takes longer but does look nicer. 

Here's the Word document version. 

Tomorrow my 7th grade math class will practice solving equations and review the perimeter and area formulas for rectangles. I designed these notebook pages to go along with the activity we'll be doing in class.

The templates and directions are available on my TpT page.

UPDATE-- Using this activity I was able to uncover some misconceptions some students had about these concepts. It was a really productive class!