Ain't Nobody Got Time for That!

Do you LOVE lapbooks and interactive notes? I LOVE using interactive notes however let's be honest, it can take FOREVER to cut out the pieces and get students to glue the items into their notebooks. This teacher ain't got time for that this year! We've lost some teaching time with a new push for a longer RTI block and our schedule this year is completely unforgiving... We've all been there right? So, I've been looking for ways to cut corners but still do the valuable activities I love!

What's the solution?
Take those interactive activities and put them at stations or have students work on them in table groups! I'm still having students glue in important notes but practice or "fun" activities, we've been doing them as table groups. This helps cut wayyyy down on the time it takes to set up our interactive activities!

For today's genre sort activity, I prepped the activity by cutting and gluing down the pockets to neon construction paper.This was a pretty quick task since I could use the paper cutter to cut the rectangular pockets and square cards. I was able to make 10 sets in about 15 minutes. The extra 15 minutes was well worth my time because it meant my students could go straight to the sorting and discussing part of the activity!

Last Year vs. This Year: Last year I had each student glue in the pockets and cut out FOUR pages of books to sort... This year I decided that all the kids didn't need this activity in their notebooks. I wanted the to have the genre notes but they didn't need to the sort all year. Plus, I have them write down "good" books on their books I want to read list.

Last year:

This year:

Afterwards, we bagged up the cards and the pockets so I can use them again next year!

If you want to try out this genre sort activity, it's available as part of Lovin' Lit's Reading Interactive Notebooks!

Happy "Prepping"!