Whew! I always forget how quickly the first part of the school year goes, and we sure have been BUSY! September has been filled with teaching and/or reviewing with students on how to check their own books in/out on the computer, how to keep their books safe, the Bluebonnet Award books, and Digital Citizenship. As October begins, I start getting into what I call the more “meatier” lessons…lessons that will be taught during one or two library lessons, but will also carry on throughout the entire year. First of all, for Kinder, 1st, and 2nd grade I focus on teaching the parts of a book. In the past I’ve read books before like Karl and Carolina Uncover the Parts of a Book by Sandy Donovan or A Book Is Just Like You by Kathleen Fox to introduce or review those parts.
These books do a good job, but my lesson always felt “flat” to me. This year, I came up with an idea in a dream (that’s where many of my inspirations come from. In fact, one of my teacher friends used to cringe anytime I started a sentence with “I had a dream last night” because it usually meant we would be spending the afternoon trying to create whatever I dreamt about!) Anyway, I digress…In my dream, I was actually making a book piece by piece with my kids from scratch. So when my first class came in, that’s exactly what I decided to do! I had just received an order from DEMCO, so I grabbed the box, a pair of scissors, and marker, and some tape just as the kids arrived.
I asked the kids, “If I were going to make a book, what would I need?” One of the first things they say is “paper”! So I placed some white sheets of typing paper on the floor in front of me. I asked “What else?” After a few quiet seconds, a few kids said “Well, you need something harder, otherwise that’s a paperback.” So I began to cut apart the flaps on the box and asked “Will this work?” as I held up the piece. At that point, they were getting excited, and started shouting “You need another one!” So I began to cut a second piece. Then a brilliant student shouted, “You need a spine!” Once I had these 3 pieces, I asked the kids, “What do I do now?” They all shouted “Tape it together!”
After that, we added a title, author’s name (we used their class as the author), illustrations, illustrator (me), call number, barcode, and summary. When we were done, we went back and reviewed the vocabulary words and added it in bubbles on the book. They absolutely LOVED this activity of making a book, and completely got the “parts of a book.”
As I was leaving that day, I happened to find a piece of beautiful cardboard that was 8 inches by 17 inches in the trashcan and I almost shouted “Hallelujah!” as I did my happy dance! I quickly cut it apart into a 1-inch piece and two 8-inch pieces and took it home. On the drive home I tried to figure out how I could “build” a book multiple times without having to use new cardboard pieces each time.
I thought about the parts of a book and the order that the kids had come up with from that first class:
1) the hard pieces (front cover and back cover)
2) the spine
3) putting it together (tape/glue = velcro pieces)
4) the pictures (making it look pretty)
5) the title
6) the author
7) the illustrator
8) the barcode to scan the book to check it out
9) the summary
10) the call number
Then I began to create the individual pieces that I could then add to my cardboard frame using the velcro. I was so excited that I couldn’t wait to test it out with my students! 🙂
I also created a poster that I could use to review the parts that day as we built it, but also throughout the whole year.
I took my poster to Office Depot to create a 24×36 poster-size color version. (It cost about $19.00 but I had a 25% off coupon as well as a $10 reward coupon, so it turned out pretty cheap! I am feeling a little guilty, to be honest, about all the posters that I’m making at Office Depot. I can’t draw to save my life, so creating cute anchor charts like you see on Pinterest is out of the question! I figure I’ll use the posters for quite a few years, and they just turn out so cool that I can’t seem to stop!)
After laminating it, I stuck on Stikki clips so that I can hang the different labels on top of the poster. (I’ve also used Velcro in the past, but it tends to pull at the poster when you are taking things down, so I decided to try something different.)
As I read about a part of the book, I would add the label onto the poster. After the book is over, I took the pieces down and handed them to the students to see if they remembered how to label the parts of a book. (I created both a colored version and a black version of the labels….I couldn’t decide which one I liked better!)
Now that I have introduced these terms, I will have the students practice with each new book that we read. As part of our “preview book walk” I’ll point to a part of the book and have them tell me what it is. I also created an “I Have, Who Has?” game to review these parts. They love playing it and always want me to time them so they can beat their previous time.
As a final assessment, I printed out an 8×10 copy of the poster and kept it up at the circulation desk. As students come up to check out their books, I’ll point to a part of the book or point to a part on their book and they have to tell me what it is. This is a quick way to see if they have mastered these concepts. If you would like a copy of any of these items, you can get them on my website here or at my TpT store. I hope you found this useful! Sandy
Genius!! I just purchased! I am always looking for things to do with my middle school special needs students! This is awesome! We will play you I Have…Who Has on Tuesday!! Great timing and awesome idea!! Thanks for dreaming and sharing your dream with us!!
You're welcome Kathi! I had some kids that came back this week and showed me the books that they had "made" at home! It was quite wonderful to see them so excited about their book! 🙂 AND they could tell me most of the parts we had gone over! 🙂 Yeah! I love when an idea actually works!
I'm so sorry it took me so long to respond, Joanne. My husband and I were hit with a vicious flu, but one after the other, so it took forever to leave our house!
The way you play the game, and any "I Have Who Has" game is this: I hand out the cards to the students. If you have more students than cards, like I do, then you divide the group into 2 teams. They can compete against each other for the better time. I usually appoint someone from the non-playing team as "Time Keeper". When they say go, they start the timer and the person who has the card "I have Front Cover." reads their card. The person who has the answer to this question "Who has the person who wrote the book?" will then read their card and wait for someone to answer them. When we go through all the cards and get back to the person who says "I have the Front Cover." the timer stops. It's a great way to review, and a great way to teach kids to pay attention throughout the whole game because if they are NOT paying attention, there will be silence, which is costing seconds on the timer. I hope this helps! 🙂
Hi Sandy. Thanks for your great resource Parts of a Book that I purchased on TPT. I was hoping you could send me an editable version of the game so that I can make a couple of changes relevant to my students. Thanks in advance.
Hi Karelle,
I just added an editable version of the “I Have, Who Has” game. You should be able to redownload the activity from TPT to get the updated files. I hope this helps! 🙂
Sandy
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Genius!! I just purchased! I am always looking for things to do with my middle school special needs students! This is awesome! We will play you I Have…Who Has on Tuesday!! Great timing and awesome idea!! Thanks for dreaming and sharing your dream with us!!
Thanks Laurie! I'm glad you liked it, and hope your students do as well! 🙂
I agree, this idea is awesome! I am going to try it out for myself. Thank you for sharing! From a newbie (librarian) and fellow "Book Fairy". Kathi
You're welcome Kathi! I had some kids that came back this week and showed me the books that they had "made" at home! It was quite wonderful to see them so excited about their book! 🙂 AND they could tell me most of the parts we had gone over! 🙂 Yeah! I love when an idea actually works!
I love this idea. Can you tell me exactly how you run the summary game at the end?
I'm so sorry it took me so long to respond, Joanne. My husband and I were hit with a vicious flu, but one after the other, so it took forever to leave our house!
The way you play the game, and any "I Have Who Has" game is this:
I hand out the cards to the students. If you have more students than cards, like I do, then you divide the group into 2 teams. They can compete against each other for the better time. I usually appoint someone from the non-playing team as "Time Keeper". When they say go, they start the timer and the person who has the card "I have Front Cover." reads their card. The person who has the answer to this question "Who has the person who wrote the book?" will then read their card and wait for someone to answer them. When we go through all the cards and get back to the person who says "I have the Front Cover." the timer stops. It's a great way to review, and a great way to teach kids to pay attention throughout the whole game because if they are NOT paying attention, there will be silence, which is costing seconds on the timer. I hope this helps! 🙂
Do you have the front and back copy of these?
Thanks!
Dianna,
Everything you need for this, including the front and back copy of the book, can be found here at https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Making-a-Book-909539
Hope this helps!
Sandy 🙂
Cute idea! How do you attach the spine to the front and back covers? Velcro???
Hi Mary, Yes I used Velcro but someone else also posted that they used a binder. 🙂
Hi Sandy. Thanks for your great resource Parts of a Book that I purchased on TPT. I was hoping you could send me an editable version of the game so that I can make a couple of changes relevant to my students. Thanks in advance.
Hi Karelle,
I just added an editable version of the “I Have, Who Has” game. You should be able to redownload the activity from TPT to get the updated files. I hope this helps! 🙂
Sandy