Ever so much learning with class books

How do you learn best?  Do you like to hear information, or do you prefer to see it?  Do you need to be involved in doing something to really learn and remember?  Do you learn best when you are totally involved?

“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.”

I think most of us are familiar with this quote from Benjamin Franklin.  It has stood the test of time, and still rings true today.  So how do we involve children, so that they really do learn?

One of the ways I like to do this is to make class books.  There are so many possibilities!  Over the years I've helped my classes write class experience stories, telling about a field trip or a cooking activity, bringing an element of literacy to follow up other kinds of learning.  We've made books of graphs, class books that are innovations on popular children's literature, big books, little books, whole class books and books by individuals.  We've made them with sturdy cardboard covers, flimsy paper books, and books we published in a "real" bound book.

For the last several years I've helped each child make two books of their very own: a hand print alphabet book, and an abc activities book.  Children sit and read them frequently, looking back at their illustrations, commenting on their writing, reading their names, and remembering letters and sounds we worked on to make each page.  I love that the children look back at their work so often, reviewing their learning because they want to.  I plan to publish examples and directions, as well as printables, for those of you who also teach little people - follow my TeachersPayTeachers store to get updates when these and other new materials become available.

Children love to see themselves, their writing and their pictures.  That's what makes class books such fantastic learning tool - they love to look back and revisit their learning.  In our Baa Baa colorful sheep book, we have lots of repetitive text (which helps support early reading), a familiar nursery rhyme (they know the words, so pretend reading and other early reading strategies are supported), and pictures that help the children figure out the unknown parts (using picture clues is an important early reading strategy too!)  Do you see where the children added their own name in the middle of the song?  We practiced writing our names as we made the book, and when they revisit the book they read the names of their class mates.  Want to try this one out?  I have a freebie you can download.

Innovations on familiar stories also support children's early reading - with repetitive text, familiar stories, opportunities to write and read our names, and picture clues.  Add in the irresistible draw of seeing their own work in the books, and you have a recipe for reading and writing success.  Those of you who know me, or are regular readers (thank you!) know that I like to include hands on learning, math skills, cooking, and field trips whenever I can.  Below you can see the letter C shaped cookies that the children made from scratch, and plastic sorting cookie shapes we practiced math skills with, along with a class book we made. 

Those field trips and cooking activities are great learning tools all by themselves, but it is easy to add an element of writing and reading, with class experience stories.  The pictures below tell the story of making applesauce, so why not have the children dictate as a class how it was done, then publish it?

After we finish an activity, I sit with the children and ask them to tell me what we did.  Because they are so young, they usually tell what they liked the best first, or what was most memorable.  I write their thoughts down on a chart, modelling the writing process.  When we've got all the important ideas down on paper, we look at the chart together, and decide what order their sentences should be in.  When the children go outside to play, I'll type up their words, add photos taken during the activity, and print it off.  My favorite simple way to bind children's class books is to print on regular paper and slip the pages into a bradded folder, gluing on a cover to finish it off.  These books have been sturdy enough to survive a couple of years of classroom use, and if you buy lots of bradded folders during back to school sales, you pay only a few cents for them.  The return on that investment is hours of children reading, an absolute bargain!

Below is an even easier, cheaper version, made by simply stapling pages of children's writing together.  The 3 children who made this book chose it for story time several times too, because we let them read it to their friends, another powerful motivator and teaching tool!

You can also use songs to put together class books.  When we were learning the letter J, we also learned Jugo de Naranja in Spanish, singing along with it on youtube.com.  I transcribed the words to make a book so that the children could choose to review it during storytime (who doesn't love a book that also involves singing along?!).  As you can see, we added a small drink of orange juice to the mix to keep everyone fully engaged, and we practiced the book, song, and Spanish language learning at least once a week, because students chose it for story time.  Happy memories are worth revisiting, and adding a literacy element was simple and effective.

 

Class books aren't only for learning literacy skills either, you can practice all kinds of math skills with your class books.  Here's the beginning of a spring/farm themed counting book we made.  Again, I made a simple cover to glue to a bradded folder, and inserted the children's pages.  This book includes names, numerals, counting, and an art project, all in one simple to create book.  Did we reread it? You bet!

You can also make books of graphs or other math skills that your class practices. When we read the very popular Pigeon books by Mo Willems, I added a math element to our learning with some Pigeon themed graphs.  I put the completed graphs in a bradded folder, and the children read and reread that too, finding their names on the graphs and practicing graphing skills as they did so.

For those of you who want to include more class books in your school day, but just don't have time to make them, I have put together a collection of 28 class books, ready to print and go: click on the picture below to check it out.  For even more ideas, check out Class books.

 This set has books that work well for each letter of the alphabet, and between them use every preprimer word, so you cover reading and writing skills all year long, with very little preparation.  The books are all available individually too, so you can pick and choose what's right for you, or get the whole set at a huge discount.

Making class books is a tried and true method of involving students in their learning, and like Benjamin Franklin's quote, it has stood the test of time.  I hope you found some new ideas about how to incorporate class books into your school year, and I'd love to hear new ideas too, so please share your ideas in the comments!

Happy teaching and learning!
Paula

Nursery Rhymes

It's been several months since I blogged.  I've fully intended to, and it really surprised me to find myself without a clue what to write about, now that I don't have a class full of kiddos anymore.   It's definitely different, being a teacher without a class, and without all the normal creative supplies that I guess I haven't been without in 21 years.  You know, simple things like paint and blocks and toys.  I probably could, and maybe should, write about the process of letting go of those things, and how much more of me went along with them than I realized.  Who would have thought that the creative side of me depended upon having paint in the cabinet and small children running around?  

Anyway, I have been working away hard on my Teachers Pay Teachers store, and love it!  It's a different kind of creativity, one that uses the computer rather than paper and glue, and while I am very excited about the things I'm creating there, I don't want my blog to be just an extension of my store.  You don't come here for that, or at least, not only for that!  Teaching and learning ideas is what this blog needs to focus on, so I've been at a blogging stand still.  Until now.

This morning I realized that I want to share my TpT creations AND other teaching ideas, and I have enough photos of children and their projects to last a very long time!  Today I want to share ideas around Nursery Rhymes - some I've written about before, and others are brand new.  I hope you find something you can use with your children!

Humpty Dumpty 

I wrote before about a fun egg dropping activity I found at Mrs Kelly's Kindergarten.  She recommends hard boiling an egg, then predicting whether it will break when dropped on different surfaces, and testing to find out.  The children LOVED this activity!

I'll let you in on a secret - this doesn't end well for Humpty!

The Muffin Man
I've always had the children make muffins and a Muffin Man book when we learn about the letter M.  I simply typed up an opening page with the rhyme on it, then each child filled in their name and a type of muffin on their pages, which went:  _____ is the muffin girl/boy, muffin girl/boy, muffin girl/boy, who likes _______ muffins.  If you want the pages already typed up and printed for you, it is included in my Class Books For Every Letter of the Alphabet.

 

The Queen of Hearts

Q is such a difficult letter to find things for, so we have always taken full advantage of The Queen of Hearts nursery rhyme!  The Missing Tarts by B. G. Hennessy is a fun book to use, as the characters search for the tarts through many different nursery rhymes, and a recipe is included in the book.

 We liked to dress up as royal characters, and we have been lucky enough to be visited by HRH the Queen (a neighbor and personal friend of mine), for whom we practiced our best manners, and made the tarts.  The children love it when adults join on in the pretend!

This Little Piggy or To Market To Market

I created this cute piggy craft for International Mud Day, but it would work well with a piggy nursery rhyme too if you changed the words you put with it.  Adults traced the circles for the body, head and snout, triangles for ears, and squares for legs, then the children cut them out.  Half a pipe cleaner curled around a pencil made a nice little piggy tail!

 Five Little Ducks, or Six Little Ducks That I Once Knew
There are so many possibilities!  The duck hand print is fairly self explanatory, and the construction paper ducks were very simple: I provided either adult or baby duck shapes, and the children tore construction paper scraps (strengthen those little fingers!) and glued them on.  Don't forget to incorporate real animals when you can!

Jack Be Nimble
This is another nursery rhyme that lends itself to a class book.  _______ be nimble, _____ be quick, _____ jump over the candlestick!  As you can see, our candle stick was the non-flammable kind, but that didn't bother the children at all.  It's not every day that the teacher invites you to run and jump inside!

Mary Had a Little Lamb
This one is also included in my class book set mentioned above.  _____ had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb.... so easy, and who doesn't like stuffed animals?  Don't have a sheep?  Ask the parents, or try garage sales, it's amazing what you can find!

 
I've also mentioned this one before, it's available for FREE here! I made two versions, one with a picture to color, and this one for us to paint our own sheep on.  I provided the black head shape and eyes after the children finger painted their colorful sheep.  It amazes me how different each sheep is when we make this, and the children love reading the books they helped to make.

The Itsy Bitsy Spider

Okay, I'll admit it, I don't think this one is included in any of the Mother Goose Nursery Rhyme collections, but every child knows it and loves it, so I'm going to include it!  I found this idea in Mailbox Magazine several years ago.  It's simply a house shape, with a bendy-end straw as a waterspout, with a Halloween spider ring slipped onto it.  A little tape at the top and bottom of the straw so the spider doesn't get lost, and as you can see, the children loved to sing the song and act it out.  Coloring our houses and moving the spider were fine motor workouts, and with the song added in we have literacy and vocabulary development too.  Not too bad for a bendy straw and a plastic spider!

If you have children who are learning to read, I do have one more fun nursery rhyme activity to share with you:  My Nursery Rhyme Sentence Picture Match has 12 simple sentences and pictures for young readers to pair up.  It makes a fun center activity, and there is a follow up worksheet included.  My kindergarteners last year LOVED my sentence picture matching activities, and inspired me to start making more of these activities.    






Of course there are many, many other nursery rhyme ideas that I haven't touched on.  I have some pinned to my Nursery Rhyme Pinterest board,
and I'm always on the lookout for more fun teaching ideas.  Do you have a favorite nursery rhyme activity you'd like to share?  I'd love to hear from you!

Baa Baa Colorful Sheep, The Very Busy Spider, and a pig book.

 This week I posted my first item to my Teachers Pay Teachers Store!  It's a remake of a class book I've been doing with my class for several years, Baa Baa Black Sheep.  It's a FREEBIE, so teachers, please go download it here.  If you find it useful, I would appreciate you rating it! 

Here's the cover... and some samples of the pages the children made.

 Don't you love the crazy, jumping sheep?  Not what I envisioned, but several of the kiddos made their sheep jumping sideways!  They painted the sheep body with their finger tips, then glued on a construction paper head and eyes, and drew on legs.

 Like anything else they have a part of creating, they are eager to read the books we make as a class.  They have been singing variations on Baa Baa Black Sheep a lot this week.  One afternoon we over heard one child singing as she washed her hands, "Baa Baa yellow fish, have you any... eyebrows?  I don't know, I don't know, if you have wool."  Sometimes they crack me up!

Another of the stories we've been reading for our farm theme is Eric Carle's The Very Busy Spider. 

We watched a short animated video of the book on youtube.com: (see it here) and I made a flannel board for the children to retell the story and act it out.

 I cut notches into the sides of some small paper plates, and the children threaded brown yarn through the slots to create a web effect.  Construction paper scraps and a little glue, and we had spiders in our webs too.

We also made a pig book this week.  The kiddos cut out circles, rectangles and triangles that I'd traced on pink, tan and brown paper, and then assembled their shape piggies.  I was inspired by this craft, which I found via pinterest.com.  (I've also made a printable version, if you'd like to do this too!)

 I offered several different short sentences for the children to assemble on their piggy page: My pig is _____ (cute, in the mud, pink, brown, tan).  The children had to use their beginning reading skills to find the correct words and construct their sentence.

Check them out, aren't they adorable?  The children were very proud of their piggies, so I recorded each child reading their own piggie page, and made this youtube video  to share with their families. One mommy told me she listened and thought they sounded like angels!

With all these fun farm activities completed, we're ready for our grand finale - a trip to the farm!