I’ve never done class books in my classroom before – but recently I’ve been finding ideas and reading about them on various teacher websites/blogs and so I’ve decided to give it a go! Thus, today we started our first class book! Our class book idea is taken directly from Mrs. Levin over at Pre-K Pages (her blog is in my blog list at the left of the page)! Thanks a bunch for the Here Are Our Hands class book idea (go to link for pics) – she has lots of other ideas too! It goes great with our All About Me unit – and I think the children will enjoy looking at it in our class library and comparing their hands with their friends hands! We used multicultural skin tone paints to blend colors that matched each students skin tone and had each child (who was able to) write their name! So far it’s turning out very nicely and I think the end product will be super cute!
I’m curious to know how many of you out there make class books? And how do you use them once they are complete? Any ideas would also be welcome! I hope you are all enjoying your new school year! 🙂
Teaching to Dream 
Good for you! Let us know how the kids like the book. Kids LOVE to look at class made books in the classroom library. I was in a classroom the other day and there was a very immature and naughty little boy who went over to the library center and read the class made books quietly for 10 minutes! He was totally engaged in this activity for much longer than anything else he did that day because it was so meaningful to him to see his friends names and pictures in a book. He was turning the pages carefully and toucing the pictures and words reciting each child’s name- loads of learning there!
Thanks for mentioning my site.
vanna
I’m sure they’ll love the book! We do a “Teacher, Teacher, Who Do You See?” book in both of the classes. We take the children’s photos and add the words. “I see Suzy looking at me. Suzy, Suzy who do you see?” “I see Franky looking at me…” and so on. The last page is “I see everyone looking at me”, with a class picture. Each child gets to take the class book home for the weekend. Every year it is a favorite story, and the children love taking it home!
I did a lot of book when I was teaching and always encourage my new teachers to do at least a few. We have them bound and send them as a rotating home book and then at the end of the year, each child gets their own pages. Here are a few I have done:
Brown Bear with pictures of the children and their names (Ava, Ava, who do you see?)
The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown – each child brings something to school that is important and then tells us the most important thing – we take a photo of their object and have their words on the page
10 Black Dots – each child makes a picture using 10 sticky dots
5 things – each child brings 5 favorite objects or pictures of a special person and we put the words of those 5 things on a page with the child’s picture – no story book for this one but it is a great way for the families to get to know all the kids