Morning Work Notebooks

I like to start the daily routine every morning with some morning work. I use a SMART Board and have page for every day of the school year. There are five questions for my students to answer every day. There are math skills, geography, analogies, grammar, and word problems the students need to solve every morning. When I did this last year, the students used a regular notebook. They ended up wasting a lot of paper since they used just a small piece of paper. Also, I don't know if your students do this as well, but last year my students would open to a random page ANYWHERE in their notebook and do their work. It was a pain to hold the students accountable for their work.

I solved that problem for this year!

Morning Work notebook

I cut a composition notebook in half, added colorful contact paper, and a clear shipping label to the front. I used a heavy duty paper cutter that we have in the work room at school. If your school doesn't have a heavy duty paper cutter, Office Max will cut them for you. They do charge a small fee. I have heard from other teachers that Home Depot will cut the notebooks as well.

On the shipping label, I have the notebook clearly labeled and a number. I assign each of my students a number at the beginning of the year. This helps me get papers in alphabetical order, creative ways to have the kids line up (even numbers, multiples of 2, prime numbers...) as well as check to see if everyone is in the class for emergency drills. I highly recommend numbering your students when you get a chance. It makes my life SO much easier.

Inside the morning work notebook

 I am also going to have my students number their pages every day! This is probably a no-brainer to some veteran teachers, but I learned my lesson a little too late! I am hoping this solves my headaches of holding my students accountable.

I wish I could show you my morning work examples, but I don't have SMART notebook on my personal computer (which I am using now.) I hope to update this soon!