Wouldn’t it be amazing if EVERY student learned science at the exact same pace that we teach it? There would be people lining up to enter teacher college because this job would be a breeze! Interactive doodle notes are a teaching tool that help bring students of all abilities together to build understanding of standards-based vocabulary. All teachers recognize that at the end of most lessons, kids need more practice and time to build science understanding, but what tasks can we curate for them that are going to help them build meaning?
Here are some criteria to consider:
- Is the practice activity standards-based?
- Does it address the main ideas and not go above or below grade-level boundaries?
- Are the directions clear so that kids will be able to work independently and at their own pace?
Doodle notes are a memory-boosting learning tool that most teachers use during initial topic instruction. But, these interactive doodles are different! They are designed to provide meaningful vocabulary practice to support your existing lessons/units. Why? Because kids benefit from repetition, practice and time to interact with content!
Here’s how they work…
Let’s say you are teaching about weather (or any topic since there are pages available for every standard).
- You do your normal lessons, notes, labs etc.
- Like all teachers, you recognize that there are learning gaps and a need for students to do more practice to build science knowledge related to your current topic.
- You print the doodle vocabulary page(s) that match your weather unit standards.
- You share the included links for the Genially interactive pages with your students. These give your students a set of icons that overlay the worksheet. They click the icon over the section they are working on to find out details that will help them complete the work.
- Students complete the doodle note pages that review vocabulary using the Genially icons and some creative doodly tasks. I’m a fan of building in class time for this or using warm-up time, but I have heard that some people are using them for homework.
- Conference or quick check student work for completion. You can decide whether to grade them and here’s a post all about grading if you are looking to use them as an assessment of progress.
- Your students BETTER understand the key ideas (listed in the NGSS) that support your current topic.
Getting Started…
The first step is finding the doodle note vocabulary page(s) for your teaching topics. This pdf has links to each set of doodle notes by standard topic. You can also visit our store and click the search tool on the right side of the screen to type in your topic.
We know our students need more science practice to improve their memory and understanding. Making these practice activities takes a ton of planning time! Captivate Science interactive doodle notes are available for ALL the middle school science standards, so you can always find a practice page to match your current teaching topic.
Thanks for stopping by and remember to keep calm and doodle on!
