Student Organization = Student Success!!

ORGANIZATION. We all know the word and strive to achieve it, but sometimes still are left flustered with ideas and things piled up in every which way. As a busy teacher, you know what I’m talking about! I find that the more organized I am in the classroom, the more organized my students become…not just with their physical materials, like desktop bins and folders, but also with their ideas, how they learn, and how they demonstrate their knowledge. Kelly and I share this passion of striving to be highly organized, and after working so closely together for the past 3 years, we finally found a system that keeps us as teachers as well as our students more organized in everything that takes place in our classrooms.

We created hands on, interactive pocketbook portfolios that are (you guessed it!) highly organized. After teaching units this way for so long, our students have picked up these positive habits and absolutely thrive on this style of presenting materials and information. As a result, we found that their success has just skyrocketed, and they are retaining and demonstrating knowledge now more than ever.

Grab a freebie from our Continents Unit

Continents Pocketbook Portfolio

So what are pocketbook portfolios? They are comprehensive units that create a hands-on, interactive portfolio of student materials that relate to a particular overlying science or social studies topic. Subcategories of the topic are broken down and given a "pocket" that is used to organize all student work and materials used throughout the unit. At the end, the individual pocket folders are combined to create the larger pocketbook portfolio, which provides students with a comprehensive look at their completed work over the course of the unit. Materials in each pocket are interactive, systematic, and hands-on, and truly give students ownership of their learning. Information is also presented in the same format every week, which provides routine, consistency and clear expectations to students as they move from subcategory to subcategory throughout the unit. Information and activities are scaffolded, and progress in difficulty and higher order thinking throughout the week. Take a look at a sample schedule below!!!

*Note: This is the schedule that works for our students, but another benefit of the Pocketbook Portfolio is that it is very easy to differentiate...feel free to move activities and adjust to fit the needs of your learners!!!

We're so pleased with the way that our students have responded to this format, and are excited to see them become more independent with each activity as the weeks go on. Feel free to check out some of our Pocketbook Portfolios below! :)