Math Journals & Note Taking

Jessica Kaminski
Aug 22, 2020
10 min read

Updated: Oct 16

If you have read my previous post, you know I'm a journal junkie. I actually have several notebooks of my own filled with ideas and lists that I refuse to throw away. I've always kept them, because I know that I can go back to them and use them when needed. I have one for when we remodeled our house that helps me know all the changes we made, paint colors and such. I have another journal that I have used when taking notes at conferences. It's full of ideas. I even save my planners, because I constantly jot down ideas for blog posts and resources.

This is because I value my ideas. I see a point in jotting down my thoughts and coming back to them when I have questions. Wouldn't that be amazing if we started teaching our young students from Kindergarten how to begin journaling their thoughts, observations and insights in math?

Math journals or interactive notebooks can begin in Kindergarten and go all the way through high school. In fact, I like to introduce them during the first 5 days of school in my Day Zero program for Grades 2-8. Read more about that here. They don't have to be anything fancy but should have certain norms built in to get the most out of them each year. (This post does contain affiliate Amazon links in which I receive a small compensation for any purchase.)

This is a rather long blog post, because there's a lot to consider when implementing a math notebook for note taking. These are just the highlights. I had to make a 30-minute webinar with teacher tips to truly share how I use these in the classroom. Want access? Be sure to join the Math with Purpose Coaching Library!

Building Intent for a Math Notebook

The first thing you need to consider when using any kind of math notebook or interactive notebook in the classroom is how you want to use them. What's your intention? How do you expect students to use them throughout the lessons? How do you want to use your own math notebook in your teaching? (Yes. You will need to have one too!)

I like to have students use them as part of the lesson. This is where students complete the opening problem and jot down our notes from the objective. Obviously this can look quite different based on the grade level of students, but students learn what is on the board becomes important information for their math notebooks.

Setting Math Notebooks Up at the Beginning of the Year

We need to view math notebooks as a necessary tool for math instruction, which means we need to set them up when we begin establishing our routines for the school year. Beginning in the first 5 days as I set expectations for group work, math talk and an effective lesson, I set expectations for math notebooks.

The very first thing I do is express to students how important these will be throughout the year. I have had fourth graders come back to see my in 7th grade telling me how they still used their notebooks, because they were works of their own art. They mattered. We need to express this to them the very first time we discuss this.

Task #1: Personalize Your Math Notebook

How do we make them special? We allow them to personalize them. The very first thing students do is decorate their math notebooks. I hand out simple composition books or spiral notebooks, and I ask students to take them home. Students can cover them in appropriate pictures or art that makes it a special place to take notes.

Task #2: Set the Journals Up for Instruction

The next thing we do is set them up for instruction. I consider what components I want to include in our math notebooks and how they should be organized. This is where your individual personality is going to shine. Here are a few things to consider:

Leave the first few pages blank as a Table of Contents. You can have students make their own or print some sample pages for students to fill in. 📌 Tip: This is a great option for younger students and can be made as a simple table.
Leave the last few pages as a Glossary. It will be really complicated to put words in alphabetical order but students can add to the Glossary as new vocabulary is learned.
Add a section for frequently used resources such as Hundreds Charts or Multiplication Charts. You can snag some of my favorite resources for free here. 📌Tip: Print them two to a page so they are small enough to fit in the Math Notebook.
Consider how you want students to find all of these resources. Will students number the pages? This is a great activity for students in Grades 2 and up to practice their counting skills in Chapter 1. For younger students or students who may struggle with counting, you may want to use tabs or small sticky notes so that students can find pages quickly.

Task #3: Creating Expectations

As with any part of instruction, the clearer you can be with what you expect, the better it will go. I encourage you to create a chart that actually goes in the notebook for students to know the expectations. I like to use a Looks Like/Sounds Like Chart to be very clear about what we will include. We build this together so students take ownership of it.

Create a Looks Like/ Sounds Like Chart with your students to set expectations

Here are a few things I like to discuss:

I allow students to use markers, color pencils, crayons and pens. It's their notebook. I also find that allowing them to use materials they can't erase let's me see their errors.
I don't write in their notebooks. This is their body of work. I have seen students faces look traumatized when I take my pen and draw something. Instead I use sticky notes and make my comments on there.
Whatever I write on the board during the lesson is expected in their notebooks. Obviously this would be customized to the specific grade level, but it's a good practice to have. I want students to practice writing down the important parts of the lesson. The remaining pages are for their own work through the lesson. Some people ask students to put teacher notes on the left and student notes on the right. You will need to choose how you want to use them and set that expectation early on. (Of course, students who may need additional supports should have fill in the blanks notes.)

Using Math Notebooks in Grades K-1

Now it's time to talk about using math notebooks in the primary grades. These will look drastically different than the upper grades. While we use whiteboards, workbooks and other items during the lesson, I view the math journal as a place for things we want to remember. In this lesson, we were working on using number bonds to subtract. We looked at a picture and told a story for what we saw. Then, I asked the students to record all the number bonds that would help him determine the answer. I then asked students to point to each number bond and tell me the story they were thinking when they wrote it.

Since writing is a slow process for developing writers, the number bond was a great way to practice part-whole relationships and then relate it back to the understanding of subtraction by using a story. My hope is that each student can look back on that number bond and recall the use of subtraction.

I often talk to Kindergarten educators about truly mastering the concepts of numbers 1-10. That standard seems so basic, but when you look at how it's used in later grades, we see that students should master how to write the digits in standard form, how to read a number using word form and how to record it in expanded form (multi-digit numbers). In Kindergarten, that means students are learning to write the numbers in word form and standard form and represent the numbers using objects and pictures.

Math journals are a great place to practice this concept. My youngest learners really struggle with placing something on the page as they are still developing fine motor skills and even how to just hold a pencil. Using the math journal to work on writing and understanding the basics of numbers is a great way to create something meaningful together. You can easily build in daily practice by dividing the page into 4 equal parts for a daily number or download my free Numbers 0-10 Math Journal pages to be pasted into the notebook.

Another great way to use the math journal for young writers is to use is a summation of the task by creating an anchor chart. With older students, I ask them to record what is being taught in class. This chart is usually created on a large piece of chart paper to be referenced throughout the chapter. In doing this, older students learn how to record what's vital to understanding as I model the process by creating an interactive chart.

Younger students may struggle with the concept of recording something from the board. We have all seen that looking up, remembering and recording can take practice. So, how can we utilize this idea to help our students process and record?

I still think it's important to make the anchor chart together during the lesson, but I have found that asking younger students to make the anchor chart in their journals is best done in a small group. In a small group, I use a whiteboard to help students think about how they can represent what they have learned .

In these pictures, you see a student learning the different ways to subtract. We have already learned each method. I asked students which ways they remembered, and we created the chart together. I used my whiteboard to record any words they said and we used shared writing to record them. Then, the students had a great time making their own chart and sharing their thinking.

While it definitely took some time to do this task, I was impressed by how students responded. They were proud of their work and wanted to share and compare notes. They also were able to summarize the lesson by pointing to the picture and telling how they used it. As we continue the chapter, we will continue to reference the pages as a way they can subtract when working on word problems.

You can also type up small notes or resources that students can glue into the notebook. This is great if you have a sample problem you want students to reference and don't want them writing it down.

Using Math Notebooks in Grades 2 and Up

As we move into the upper grades, it's time to begin asking students to actually take notes. We want them to record what we do in class. Beginning from the first few days of school, we can encourage students to write down the class expectations and place them in the notebook. Take a look at this teacher example from one of my coachees, Neil from Great Hearts Texas. He created these beautiful expectations for each class in his Grade 5 classroom and asked students to place them in their notebooks.

Now that students have expectations for the math classroom in their notebooks, it's time to begin using them for the lesson. I ask students to record whatever is on the board. They can write down how they solved the opening problem and show their work. They can add notes or any additional thoughts they might have.

True confession: I am a messy journal writer. I was never able to do the Teacher Side and Student Side. That's just not the way my brain works. I encourage students to write the entire lesson down and use the pages they need. We talk about space and where everything should go, but I encourage them to use what they need as you can see here.

I do keep a Teacher Journal that students can reference and may even take notes there if my board doesn't have a lot of space. This is a great way for students to access notes if they miss a class.

Student computation in the math notebook

As students move to the partner practice portion of the lesson, they need space to model their work. Since we are working beyond basic understanding, I challenge students to show me in more than one way. They should have a visual, computation and an extension piece. You can see a great journal from a 3rd grader in New Jersey during one of my demonstration lessons. Notice the strategy of how the student estimated to see if his answer was correct! Awesome!

During the lesson, students should be encouraged to go deeper into the content while I provide differentiation options. I add an additional question prompt to each slide in my lesson asking students to extend their understanding.

In this journal, the students were asked to generate a word problem for an addition situation they were solving. Students were able to write their own and then come up with a way to solve it.

Seeing students work helps me to assess where they are in their understanding far more than an answer would. I can see if they have the part-whole relationship, understand the algorithm and so much more.

The final way I use math journals is as a journal to reflect upon the lesson and a student's learning. I have another blog post where I dive into this much deeper. We simply use four simple types of prompts to encourage students to dive deeper into the content as a reflection. Taken from Dr. Yeap Ban Har, he mentions these types of journal entries:

Descriptive journals
Evaluative/Reflective journals
Creative journals
Investigative journals

Each journal type serves a purpose in the lesson and helps students to make sense of the mathematics in the lesson while making connections.

Why Aren't You Using Math Journals Yet?

Math journals are such a great asset to the math lesson. It can seem like another task to do, but it is totally worth it. Over the years, I've heard from parents that many of my former students still kept their notebooks. They left them on their shelf and wouldn't let their parents throw them out. Some students even went back to them, because they remembered they had good notes in there. The math journal can truly be a place of great learning no matter what age. However, it takes time to teach students how to record and write thoughtful things in a notebook.

Once you begin using Math Journals, you are going to see how wonderful these tools are for assessing student understanding. Combined with summative assessment, math journals provide long term growth data that can tell a lot about a student.

You can find out all about how to implement Math Notebooks in my course with Word Wall Cards, resources and so much more coming September 2025. In the meantime, grab this free rubric resource that allows you to begin assessing your students' work! This free download includes teacher and student rubrics for Grades K-1, 2-3 and 4-8. Let me know what you think!