Foldable Love is in the Air

I am about to admit my obsession with foldables...

Anyone else in the same boat as me? 

I have used foldables for years, and have never disliked a single one of them! The kids, luckily, feel the same way! Foldables are just awesome, all around! The kids love them, and they are so much fun to create. Keeping all of our information in one place that has illustrations and "doors" to lift up, foldables have been way more fun than journal writing!

This week we have been working on animals and their behavioral/physical adaptations to their environments (part of our life science unit). Our focus for this foldable was on the animal's adaptation and whether it was physical or behavioral. We later discussed whether the behaviors were instinct or learned and added to our foldables.

I love having the kids add captions to their pictures. It brings in an important reading skill by having them write their own captions.

We also use foldables for each of our science units - in full. The whole foldable will contain ALL information for our entire life science unit. 

I choose my tabs based on our standards. This allows me to be sure I am hitting everything the students need to know. We get our notes from multiple sources, starting with our textbook. I feel as though science textbooks do a great job defining their vocabulary with images and captions, as well as providing practice reading informational text. 

Since we were discussing animal adaptions with my earlier tri-foldable, I figured I would show you where we kept our notes for this unit. We organized our foldable so that we divided land habitats and water habitats. The adaptations these animals have in order to live and survive in these environments will be completely different. 

I always create a sample foldable of my own. This is great for a few reasons. The main reason is that showing my sample causes the students to see my expectations with their own eyes. I show them my neat handwriting and my pictures that are fully colored, and they seem to understand that I want them to look like they put in a lot of effort into their foldable. I take these very seriously, and want the kids to take pride in their work. 

I save all foldables and hand them back out at the end of the year. The kids are amazed at how much work they have done by the end of the year, and because it is work THEY produced on their own, they feel so proud of it. Their recall has improved since moving from journals to foldables, as well, because they are so much fun to look through!

When they are all finished with their foldable, hang them up in the hallway on ribbon with clothespins so that people can take them down and look at them! This is so much fun for the other classes at school, as well as for parents or other visitors. When they are ready to be taken down, you haven't stapled through them or anything, so they are ready for the students to use as study guides when reviewing for testing.