How I Organize Students with a Math Binder System

Alright, I promise this entire post is not going to be about why I don’t use interactive notebooks to organize students in my classroom. How I spent two years trying to make them work and eventually threw in the towel and I will NEVER EVER go back! Let me tell you why…

So after spending my entire summer scrolling through Pinterest watching all the Youtube videos about interactive notebooks, I was excited to get started! I decided we would use composition notebooks and glue sticks. Interactive Notebooks are nothing without cutting and pasting so let’s start there.

The Cutting

I thought my system was great! I had a table at the front of the classroom where students would pick up the papers for the day and mini trash cans on each pair of desks so students could put any scraps inside. During the first week of school, we started with my math binder setup pages aka mathematician toolkit. Long story short, the scraps still ended up everywhere and my students cut so slowly! Imagine a classroom of little sloths with scissors. Such a waste of valuable time! And then the pasting, oh the pasting. 

The Pasting

Glue Sticks

The first year I used interactive notebooks to organize students, we started with glue sticks. The glue people really need to put more glue in glue sticks because students ran through those WAY too fast. Like, seriously…I swear my students would use an entire glue stick on one piece of paper. SIGH.

Elmer’s White Glue

After Winter break, I decided to lose my mind for a moment and gave them glue bottles instead of glue sticks. I even ordered the special little tops that would limit how much glue would come out and constantly screamed, “just a dot not a lot” Blah blah blah. Those little caps did nothing but dry up and jam. And I can’t EVEN tell you how many times one of my twelve-year-olds would just take the lid off and dump glue all over their desk.

Tape

I decided that tape would be the solution to all my problems so I sent an all-staff email asking for tape dispensers. Who knew teachers had so many dispensers laying around? 

Then, I ordered enough tape for each dispenser. Ummmm, remember how I thought the glue stick went out fast? Well, students were even more wasteful with tape!! After that school year, I packed all the tape dispensers away and never looked back.

So what do I do to organize students now? I’m so glad you asked!

Binders, binders, binders and I LOVE them.

I love having a math binder system because binders are forgiving, you can move the pages! With interactive notebooks, once you glue something in, it’s there forever. 

The only downside is that you have to make sure your students don’t try to share your math binder with another class. That’s like a cardinal sin in my classroom, the math binder is for math only!

To get started, I tell my students to get a 1.5 inch 3 ring binder with the sleeve in the front and 5 dividers. That’s it!

Alright, let’s dive into my math binder setup!

The Cover Page

The sleeve in the front is where they will slide their cover page. I suggest that you color code these for each class period. Inevitably, students will “accidentally” forget their binders in class and this will help you quickly know which class period it belongs to.

Divider #1: Mathematician Toolkit

This is basically a student’s second-best friend (we will hear about their best friend soon). 

Inside of the toolkit, students will have their math binder setup pages:

• Password page to keep track of all of the passwords they need to whatever websites you use in class. Mine consists of their computer login, Office 365, IXL, and Prodigy! One year I had a kid say, “If we lose this page, won’t everyone know our passwords.” Another student responded, “Yeah, but who would want to do your IXL for you?” 😂
• Formula Sheet with all of the 2D and 3D formulas they will need to know for the year.
• Invisible Math to help them remember any math that they “cannot see”. I find that we refer to -x means -1x and x means 1x THE MOST.
• Divisibility Rules, mostly used when we need to simplify fractions or convert fractions to decimals with long division. Fun times.
• Quadrant Partners page for easily and quickly pairing students. It’s similar to “clock partners”, but instead it is based on the coordinate plane. For example – students would work with their Quadrant I partner on a given day!
• Student Data Tracker that I use to help students track their test grades for the school year. After each test, students fill in their graph with their grades!

 If you’re interested in this mathematician toolkit, check it out here!

Divider #2: Warm-Ups/Spiral Review

• The first 10 minutes at the beginning of class are spent with a warm-up, I have used minutes for the past few years. I display a 5-minute timer at the beginning of class. Students turn these in every Friday so they get new warmups each week. This year, I will be using my spiral reviews as warm-ups! I will have students complete 2-3 questions each day Monday-Thursday and then we will have a quiz on Friday!

Divider #3: Current Guided Notes

• This is where you find a student’s best friend! Our guided notes, this is where students keep guided notes for our current unit. I print each set of unit notes in a different color and give the students the entire unit stapled at once. They refer to the notes often, which I love!

Divider #4: Permanent Guided Notes

• After we take our unit test, the unit notes are moved from current to permanent! This helps them when they do the weekly reviews!

Divider #5: Student Data Tracker

• Students will track their grades for each summative assessment here!

Alright, that’s it! That’s how I set up the math binder system that I love!! It helps organize students and takes very little time. But nothing is perfect, right? Two of the bumps in the road are below and how I get over them…

What if a student is absent on a day when we take notes? 

Keep extra copies in the daily absent folders, get notes from a friend when returning or go online and copy them down from a completed guided notes file.

What if a student does not bring their binder or notes to class?

When you make copies, make a few extras of each page that are not stapled. Give the student a copy of whichever page they need for the day. They will need to update it within their binder later. If the student consistently forgets their notes/binder, keep their binder in a safe place in the classroom.

I hope I have convinced you to ditch interactive notebooks and come to the binder side to organize students.

Download the Math Binder Setup pages aka Mathematician Toolkit here.

Keep it sassy!!