Foldables have been a staple in my classroom for years. The first foldable I made was on exponent rules for Algebra 1. Every year, my 8th graders seemed to do well when teaching the individual rules, but put them all together and 12 · 12 suddenly equaled four. I thought if they had a single resource they could refer to just maybe they could learn when to apply which rule. Having one piece of paper with all of the rules really seemed to help (although more than anything I think they just liked playing with the foldable and the cool way the paper folds :).
Since then I have compiled a lot of foldables, some created by me, and many others shared on the internet. A huge special thanks to Sarah Carter (@mathequalslove) who so freely shares her work. Many of the foldables I use with my Algebra2 and Algebra/Functions classes are from Sarah’s fantastic blog.
Students glue foldables into a black and white marble type notebook, putting the foldables on the right page with extra examples on the left. For the most part, students do really well with their foldable books, keeping them up-to-date and organized, and referring to them to help support their learning. Some students do struggle with organization, and occasionally someone will need an extra copy of a foldable. In addition, one of our support teachers sometimes asks if I have a foldable for her students on various topics. I started thinking about how I could create a digital file that would support both of these situations.
It’s definitely a work in progress, but I’ve created a Google Doc that resembles the Table of Contents for my Algebra 2 foldable books. In this document I’ve included links to the foldables we’ve done so far this year (I’ll continue to update as we progress through the curriculum). Some foldables were Microsoft Word/PowerPoint/Publisher files, so I have converted those to pdf files to upload into Google Docs. I will also try to provide links from the original sources for the files (this might take awhile!).
