Every year I like to make books with my students in which they can express their own feelings, likes, dislikes, things they do, personal facts, etc. They can write about all these things and read about their fellow students. They get very excited when making them and even more excited when it is their turn to take the books home to read them. You can make these books using simple materials such as cardboard, A4 size writing paper, or even a simple drawing pad. You can write about almost anything in these books. For example, you can make a monthly calendar with your students, laminate it and write the students' birthdays on it using a whiteboard marker. You can get inspired by books you may have read in class such as "Brown bear, brown bear what do you see?", songs like "This is the way" or special themes you want to teach.Shape Monster, Shape Monster,
munch, munch, munch...
How about a red circle for your lunch?
page 2 blue square
page 3 yellow triangle
page 4 green rectangle
page 5 orange oval
page 6 purple diamond
page 7 goes Shape Monster Shape Monster (top of page)
Munch, Munch, Munch (bottom of page)
For each of the shape pages the children trace that shape on the middle
of their page, color it whatever color it says and then tear pieces of
paper (again in the asked for color) and fill in the shape using torn
paper pieces and glue.
On the last page , they make their own shape monster using pre-cut
shapes. They can use crayons to add details to it.
Another idea may be : Ten Black Dots by Donald Crews
1. One dot can make an elephant's eye (just an example)
Two dots can make ___________________etc.
http://teachers.net/lessons/posts/927.html
More ideas at http://www.pre-kpages.com/classbooks
You can also use printable books you can find online to create a small graded library in class. We used paper boxes of cornflakes which we turned into book boxes to store and categorize the books we made. The kids had to put together the pages, paint the illustrations, read the book and even present the story using the laminated puppets (story characters). You can find printable story books at :
By encouraging students to get actively involved in the process of making a book they get highly motivated when time comes to read the book. They take pride in what they have achieved. Improved reading skills undoubtedly improves their learning. All we have to do is to help our students become "good readers"!
