Class Books
We love to write class books!  Not only are they a great way for children to explore elements of a story, extend their comprehension skills, and respond to literature and experiences, it's a wonderful way to build our school family.  I love to see the kids' faces when I share one of their completed books.  They laugh and blush and celebrate something we've all created together.  Here's what we've done this year:
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Who Took a Cookie From the Cookie Jar?
Every month/unit we adapt this familiar chant to whatever we're learning about.  This was our first class book!
  

Willoby Wallaby Woo
This is from a Susie Haas idea-she has the kids draw themselves with only the elephants foot above them instead of the whole elephant.  This book went a lot smoother because of that!

Who Wants to Be a Meanie?
(adapted from Meanies by Joy Cowley)
This is our second class book.  It's also a first experience with markers and scissors for lots of children.  They draw the Meanie, cut it out, then tape it over the picture with the caption, "Not ___!", after the book's text.  This is a favorite from the School Family Book Basket!

       cover                              Meanies flap down   

Meanies flap up
 

The Little Kindergarten Family
(adapted from The Little Red Hen)
We rewrite this with ourselves as the characters.  Keeping the same story structure, the children pick a task for me then we talk about all the things I'll need to do to complete it.  This time it was make popcorn-they helped me shop for it, microwave it, then add the trimmins'!  We rewrite nursery rhymes and classic stories to make them more helpful, part of building our school family.

 

Ask Mrs. Taylor's Class
This is our advice book.  Every month I'll ask one of our staff members to write an anonymous letter asking my kids' advice on what to do. I started it with asking "What Can I Do When I'm feeling frustrated?"

              cover                                   "Pretzel"

"Mountain"-another stressbuster strategy


Pretzel and Mountain are two of our Brainsmart Start and Stressbuster Strategies-click here to learn more!)








 

*It Takes a School Family
Adapted from It Takes a Village by Jane Cowen-Fletcher.  We talk about how we can all help keep each other safe and our classroom helpful.  Then we write about something we do personally

The cover with all our pictures-I've whited out our faces because I have a "no pictures" policy. 
 
Kane reminds people of "Attentive Listening".
 
  Antela brings people tissues.
 

Mrs. Taylor's Class and the Mad, Sad, Grumpy Day
We wrote this after a particularly YUCKY day-I felt like Miss Viola Swamp and the kids were Miss Nelson's class!!  We take it out every now and then as an example of how we can change a not so helpful day...

The cover with a very unhappy baby photograph on it!

"Our Opening was loud and noisy." 

"We had a class meeting.  Mrs Taylor felt sad and angry.  Mrs. Taylor's kids felt mad."
Picture of ending page coming soon-"We did it!"

Frogs
The non-fiction book compiled from our project on frogs

What a Wonderful School
(Adapted from the song "What a Wonderful World" and the song book)
  We took a school walk and charted what we saw, then plugged it into the song structure.  We will make an audio recording to go with it too.  The kids are so funny listening to that song-the whole room gets quiet and they are so in tune with the music.
       

Who Took an Apple From the Apple Tree?
(our adaption for September)
 
(We used sponge painting-you could also use apple prints).)

*What Do You Think of When You Wish Someone Well?
Wishing people well is big part of our school family.  When someone is absent,  hurting, sick, upset, moving, etc. we give them some "major wish well power" (a direct quote from one of the students in my school family last year)!  We talk about things you can think of when you're wishing someone well...we made our ideas into a class book.
 
                 "I think of a puppy dog."  (Alexx)

*We Remember...
We have had 3 students who have moved away from our family this year.  After writing this book, we share it and mail it to the student's new home.  Click here to learn more about what we do when someone moves away.
 

"I remember Malik teaching me how to slide."

Who Caught a Star From the Starry Night?
(our adaption for October)
 
We used Q-Tips to paint the stars and drew and cut out ourselves to glue on the starry sky.









 

Our Many Colored Days
(Adapted from My Many Colored Days, by Dr. Seuss)
We wrote this after talking about feelings, how to identify them, and how to handle them in a helpful way.  It's illustrated with crayon resist.
 
                                                     "When Jason has a blue day, he feels happy."

Who Took a Pumpkin from the Pumpkin Patch?
(Our adaption for November)