Interactive notebook Indians of Desert Southwest

        Desert Southwest

       This post is related to a previous post concerning the Native American Indians of the Desert Southwest of the United States. Here is the link.
http://betikempa1.blogspot.com/2015/09/desert-southwest-pueblo.html 

     As my students learn about more Indian tribal regions, I have them work on their interactive notebook pages.  Today's topic was Indian tribes of the Desert Southwest.  The kids learned about the Hopi, Zuni, Anasazi, Taos, and the Apache tribes.  Our discussion included climate, location, food, beliefs,  clothing, and shelter. 

     We glued together the base page and the top to illustrate the outside and inside of an adobe pueblo.

Base page

Top flap

     After the page was glued together, the students added information to describe the illustrations. The students could choose to write numbers or letters on the top and/or bottom sheet. Next, under the illustrations, a numerical or alphabetical list was made to label the activities or locations pointed out in the illustrations.


Climate Regions
       Another activity concerned the climate regions. These are illustrated by the students.  This shows the climate region of the Desert Southwest.  The names of tribes are written in the space under the region. I always encourage my 5th graders to add color to their illustrations. This helps the students to spend more time looking at the information which will help them hopefully retain the information. During a test, you can look back into your "mind's eye" and see and remember  an image or color to help bring back the related information.

      My 5th grade students like to work on this type note taking in addition to traditional note taking.

I would love to read your comments on this activity.  Would you use something like this in your class? 

Beti