Hi Teachers!
This page has been a long time in the making!! Many of you have asked,
"When are you going to be finished with your
Class Books page?" Well, here it is!!
These are some books that I have made with my kindergartners. The children
love making them and of course,
reading them! I send each home with the children to be shared with their
families. If it follows a piece of literature, I often send a copy of the
book home as well. At the end of the year, we have a raffle and each student gets
to keep
one class book.
I have provided a link to the cover, sample page and template whenever possible.
For some of the books, I
don't have pictures of the covers or sample pages yet. I will post them
once I have them complete. You will need Adobe Reader to open the
templates.
If you don't have this
program installed on your computer already,
you
can download it for free
by clicking on the link
below.
Have fun making the books! Feel free to email me if you have any
questions. I will post more as I come up with new ideas.
Michelle Gagné
We make this book upon reading the book
Ten Black Dots by Donald Crews.
The cover
and sample page is of one that I made several years ago. Now, I have found
some paper with black dots all over it that makes a cut cover. The
kids follow the pattern in the book and
create a new idea (for example, "4 black dots can make the wheels on a car.")
For the dots, I use the lowercase i dot
on the Ellison machine. I haven't been able to find black sticker dots
yet!
We obviously make this book in the Fall! We make a predictable chart
following the same writing pattern: In the fall,
we see... The kids each take a turn and I write their ideas. The
ideas are then typed, cut into word chunks, and
the kids then put the sentence back together. Lastly, the kids illustrate
their ideas.
This is my version of
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? We
make a list of things that a jack-o-lantern might
see in the fall. I then take their ideas and type them up for the pages in
the book. Lastly, the kids illustrate the pages.
They LOVE making this book and find reading it hilarious! You are welcome
to use my template if you don't do the list
with your kids. On the last page, I glue on a picture of the kids in their
Halloween costumes (this will make more sense
when you open the template).
**See below for the winter version (Snowman, Snowman, What Do You See? and
spring version (Bumblebee, Bumblebee,
What Do You See?).
One of my favorites! First, the kids think of something that Mr. Funny
Bones can do (hit a ball, raise his hand etc.) which
is also something that they can demonstrate to me. The kids cut out Mr.
Funny Bones and glue him posed in the
position of their choice (as best as they can) and then, I take their picture in
that position. I type in their ideas and then just plop in the pictures in
Word. You can print the pictures and then glue them onto the template if
that's easier for you.
I'm sorry that I don't have a skeleton available for you to download.
I got mine out of Mailbox magazine several years back.
We read the many books that put a new spin on the Gingerbread Man story!
Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett and
The Gingerbread Girl by Lisa Campbell Ernst are a must after reading the
original story! Many of the kids dislike the fate of
the Gingerbread Man in the original so we create this book!
*The kids love to partake in "The Great Gingerbread Man Hunt." If you are
interested in seeing what that's all about, visit
the Photo Album and take a peek at the pictures.
This is the winter version of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See.
The kids brainstorm things that they would
see during the winter. On the last page of the book, I take a picture of
the kids all bundled up in their winter gear.
What would you do if it snowed last night? I pose that question to the
kids and then they illustrate their ideas.
For this class book, I purchased the $100 pad of paper from Really Good Stuff.
I then glued each child's photo in the center. On the back, I made labels
and had the kids draw and write
what they would buy if they had $100 to spend.
This is always a favorite of mine as well as the parents! I punch a 100 in
black from the Ellison machine. I then
give it to them and see what they come up with! It is really exciting to
see how imaginative and creative they get. I type their idea on a label
and stick it onto the page.
I have the kids think of something and have them imagine it missing part of it.
They then fill in the sentence with
their idea and illustrate it. This is always one of my favorites.
This is the spring version of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See.
The kids brainstorm things that they would
see during the spring. On the last page of the book, I take a picture of
the kids outside with everything in bloom.
A good book to make after taking a field trip.
It's always fun to find out what the kids want to be when they grow up.
