Small Group Notebook

I am linking up with Tara for Monday Made It over at 4thgradefrolics.  I used a composition book last year with my small group students.  I kept notes regarding their reading progress, any difficulties that I noticed while reading/working, and their progress.  It worked out great to use during parent-teacher conferences.  The only problem that I had was that it was not easy to flip through and I had a difficult time finding the pages for each student.  I decided to re-vamp it this year and I came up with this.

Here are all the supplies that I used:

I started with a $0.50 composition book from Walmart.  I took the cover off and unbound the book by cutting the strings in the binding.  I then cut down each page to 7" wide just to cut the binding part off.  I used my Zutter binding machine to punch the holes for the spiral.  By having a spiral on it, I can fold the pages over which will make it easier to jot notes in.  I pulled out some old double sided paper from my stash and made a front and back cover.  I used the Paper Studio vinyl (Hobby Lobby's brand) to create the title for the front of the book.  That vinyl worked out very well.  It's not the best quality vinyl because it is really thin.  Since I wanted to laminate the covers, the vinyl didn't add a lot of bulk which was perfect!  

After I had it all put together and bound, I punched out tabs from some coordinating cardstock for the tabs.  I also stamped numbers on each tab for each student.  I number my students, so these numbers will correspond with the student numbers.  I divided the notebook by 5 pages since the composition notebook comes with 100 pages each.  I am hoping that it will be enough for each student.  If I need to, I can cut up more pages and add them later to the book.

I really enjoyed this project.  I hope that it holds up well for the whole year.  The best part was that it only cost me $0.50.  Everything besides the composition book was in my stash.  I'm glad that I was able to use up some old supplies.  Thanks for stopping by!