Math by the Mountain

Making things for interactive notebooks can be tedious, at times.  If you’re like me, you use a composition notebook so students will (hopefully) resist the urge to tear out pages for scratch paper.  The issue with composition notebooks, however, is their sizing.  A full sheet of paper is much too large to fit, but a half sheet makes the page feel a bit empty.

Also, unless you want to make everything from scratch to perfectly fit in your interactive notebook, you’re a bit stuck on what to do to get full-sized materials you may have used in the past to fit.

My hack: print any normal sized paper at 80-85% the size and, after cutting out the paper, it will fit PERFECTLY into a composition interactive notebook.  Use this hack to make the world your oyster.

Here’s how to do it:
1.  Make sure your document has been saved as a PDF.
2.  When you go to print, select the following setting:

Rule of Thumb:
If the margins on the original paper are 1″, print at 85%.
If the original margins on the paper are .5″, print at 80%.
If the original margins on the paper are at .25″, print at 75% (not common).

Here’s the difference it makes:

This has saved me a TON of time making interactive notebook pages, and also allows the writing space to be much larger for students.  Sometimes a half-sheet can be cramped.  Hopefully this teaching hack can help save you a ton of time, like it does for me!