All About Our Class

One of the most special parts of the beginning of a new school year is getting to know and love my new kids.

So what better way to get to know your students than with a fun book that's all about them!

Ever since I started teaching, I have always had a student of the week each week.  I send home a little paper with questions for them to answer and ask that they send in a few pictures.

Then I type up their responses and put them and the pictures up on my hallway bulletin board for the week.

The kids love it and so do I.  They love walking past each time we come and go from our classroom.

But I wanted something that would last a little longer than just a week...

So I created a book for my class to make that would last all year!

The front cover is of course my name and a class photo.

Instead of going to CVS and getting a class photo developed, I just inserted the photo onto the page (the editable version is in PowerPoint so I used that one to insert my picture and type my name at the top) and printed. So much easier.

I decided to send the pages home for the parents and students to complete together, a little family involvement never hurt anyone.  But you could help the students complete their page in class or even let older students complete theirs on their own.

This little guy obviously had a "little" help from his mama.

I loved seeing all the sweet pictures that my kids had picked out for their page and learning more about each one.

Some used baby pictures and others used more recent ones.  The above picture is from the very first half day of kindergarten where we read The Kissing Hand and then the parents painted their child's hand.

I purposely made the response spaces a little bigger and more appropriate for drawing pictures, because that is what I wanted/expected my kindergarten kids to do.  I also added little clip art to help them remember what each section for for.  There is a girl version with girl clip art and a boy version with boy clip art.

And of course I had to do a page for me!

Don't laugh at my drawing.  Poor Clifford looks a little funny.  Drawing is definitely not a talent of mine.

I used an autograph page as our back cover.  I made the document so that you can add or delete lines, but I purposely left a few extra blank lines in case we have any new friends join us throughout the year.

One of the biggest reasons I wanted to make a book about our class, was so that it could go in our Book Nook for the rest of the year.  I wanted the kids to have a book that they could pull out anytime they were in Book Nook and enjoy looking at the pictures and "reading" about their friends.

It has quickly become one of the most popular books in Book Nook.  My kids always love finding their face in our group picture, looking through the pages of their friends, finding and enjoying their own page, and finding names on the back cover.

This was a success!

At the end of the year, my plan is to pull out each child's page, put it in their End of Year Book, and then keep the cover and autograph page for myself.  We'll do another autograph page later for the back cover of the End of Year Books.

If you want to check this class book out for your own class click here or on the picture below.

 

The book comes in an editable version and an uneditable version.  

Enjoy!