Foldable Planning

I have gotten a lot of e-mails lately from people that are just starting to use ISNs and trying to create foldables and things to go into it.  This is a random post, just to show my thought process when making pages and how easy it is.  I'm not super creative with this stuff or anything special at all.  Most of these foldables are so simple and really nothing crazy, they just help to break up information.

At the end of the day today I sat down to make something for tomorrow.  Initially I had not planned on making a foldable, but after jotting down some notes I saw that it fit nicely into one.

Before even thinking about what I wanted to do, I sketched out what I want kids to be able to do.  In this case, I want them to be able to define a variable and write an equation from a verbal scenario. After doing the problem myself, I looked at the process and chunked it into three main parts (the circles I drew): interpreting the word problem, defining the variables, and then writing the equation.  So I figured a foldable with three parts would be best.

 Then I just made a really rough draft of the foldable.  Pretty isn't it?

 For this, I put the directions on the left side of the flaps and the work on the right side.

Next I made it in the computer using PowerPoint.  I also decided when I made it that I wanted the directions to be in a different font from the problem so that it is easy to see that they are different.  (random fact: the font on the left side is actually my own handwriting that I turned into a font using the iPad iFontMaker app)

Then I print it out and make sure everything works out.  For this one, I wasn't happy with the spacing on the problem because it was so close that it was difficult to really circle the words.  So for the final copy I fixed that.

In addition, I set up my page headings tonight.  Usually I would complete my copy of the foldable and tape it in, but I'll be printing these on colored paper tomorrow and I want to make sure that mine matches what the kids will have.  So instead I'll create my own copy tomorrow morning and make sure that I have it all done before I teach it tomorrow.

When teaching this tomorrow, I will use a projector and put up the inside of the foldable.  I will have kids box things in and highlight EXACTLY like I do and make sure to model exactly what I want them to do.  I want to make sure that their foldables are useful so I'm very careful to make sure they get things down correctly here.

And here's the foldable:


This is the left side page I'll be doing with it.  Nothing fancy, just practice.