I Can't Think of Any

Seriously is there any concept that couldn't be turned into a classroom book?  I can't think of any.  How about compound words?  Uh huh...

I put the kids in partnerships, gave them a compound word that would be easy to draw, and put them to work.  They drew the compound word, added a + sign, and then wrote the compound word on the back so that readers could guess what the word was before turning the page to see if they were right.  Can you guess correctly?

What a meaningful way to collect, display, and enjoy our learning, not for just a day or two but for the rest of the year.

In Honor of Antonyms and Awards

I'm all about making classroom books.  They're very popular with my kids.  I've mentioned before that we make so many that each child gets to take at least two home at the end of the year as souvenirs.  Click here if you just might be interested in seeing some of the books I've posted about so far.  

The book below is in honor of antonyms, as well as learning a concept by way real reading and real writing.  I partnered up the kids and together they worked on an antonym pair.  One word was illustrated on one side of the paper.  Its antonym was on the other.  It's not massively creative, but it's worth reading by kids, simply because it was authored by them.

Before I put this post to rest, I'd sincerely like to thank Natalie from Teachery Tidbits, Sandy from Soaring Through Second Grade, and Mandy from Mandy's Tips For Teachers for thinking my blog is worthy of the One Lovely Blog Award.  I'd also like to thank Amy from The Crazy Adventures of a University Grad, Kelly from All That Glitters in First Grade, and Mrs. Cook from First Grade Smart Cookies for sending the Top 10 Award my way.  I consider it an honor, and I'd like to honor these gals by inviting you to visit their blogs.  I know they'd love to hear from you.

I'd love to send you all to visit these gals as well.  They're now awarded with the Top 10 too!

Miss Russell from Thoughts of a Student Teacher

Jennifer from The First Grade Dream

Ashlyn from The Creative Classroom

Kelli from Tales From a Traveling Teacher

Lisa from Stories From Second

 Ms. Wilcox from Oh, Kindergarten & K-5 Sped I Go!

Ann from Mrs. Greene's Kindergarten Korner

Staci from Let's Teach Something

Amanda from Learn, Laugh, Grow

K. Mo from Flamingo Fabulous in Second Grade

Worksheetless Grammar

Worksheetless - the absence of worksheets.  That's my definition at least.  This would be my preferred way of practicing grammar and most everything else for that matter.  For example, we've been learning about apostrophe s.  A recent big book of ours called Uncle Buncle's House provided the perfect opportunity to practice the skill.  We created a book as we often do.  Each writer used apostrophe s at the end of their name and drew something special that belonged to them.  (Yep, that's me in Hailey's picture.  How sweet.)

In order to help us learn about homophones, we made the following book about "to" and "two."  On one side of the paper the child wrote, "I went to..." and on the other "I have two..." 

What other skills could I teach using the creation of a classroom book that will be in the hands of little learners over and over throughout the year?  I'm thinking the options are quite endless.