Class books have always been popular in my preschool special education classroom.  There are many reasons why they are such a hit:

  1. Young students love to look at pictures of themselves.
  2. Pictures of peers are usually also interesting to young children.
  3. You can cover many different learning concepts with class books.
  4. Class books can be excellent language promoters.
  5. Class books can be great “take-home” items to extend learning from the classroom into the home.

In fact, I can’t think of any reasons not to make class books for preschool and preschool special education students.

The class books that we make in my program fall into two categories.  Here are two types of class books that you should make for your classroom.

Concept Class Books

Concept class books are books that cover a certain concept.  The possibilities are endless.  It could cover specific vocabulary about a subject, a comparative concept such as “taller” and “shorter”,  counting, etc.   Often, a class book can cover several concepts at once.

Here are several of my favorite “concept” class books:

“Whose Eyes are These?” Class Book

blue paper with clear window cut out to show eyes of a preschoolers

This book uses close-up student pictures to highlight specific facial features.  Students see a facial feature highlighted in a “peek-through” window, and they guess whose feature it is.

Concepts Covered: Facial feature vocabulary; working on classmates’ names; answering “whose” questions; using possessives (“It’s Johnny’s eyes”).

Theme:  All About Me (085) or Body (090)

 

preschool faces with adjacent cardstock rectangles

You can get instructions for this specific book here.

“Silly Faces” Class Book

      

This is another “facial feature” book.  It allows students to create silly pictures of themselves and their classmates with repositionable glasses and moustache accessories.

Concepts: Facial feature vocabulary; working on classmates’ names; prepositions (“You put the glasses on Suzie.“)

Theme: All About Me (085) or Body (090)

You can find more information about making this book here. 

 

   

Color Shoes Class Book

Concepts: working on classmates’ names; naming colors (015); matching colors to color names

Theme: Colors (015)

“All About My Friends” Class Book

Concepts: Working on classmates’ names; differentiating between eye color, hair color, hair length, and type.

This class book is a product in my teacher store. 

“All About My Family” Class Book

Concepts: Working on classmates’ names; differentiating children and grownups; differentiating girls and boys; counting objects (people) and representing the count with a numeral.

Theme: All About Me (085); Families (086)

 

This class book is a product in my teacher store.

“My Name is _____ and My Name Starts with ____” Class Book

preschool girl and large cut-out letter M

This quick class book highlights student names and “boss letters” (the letter your name starts with).

Concepts: Working on classmates’ names; Recognizing first name; Working on the concept of “starts with”

Theme: All About Me (085) or Names (020)

“Taller/Shorter Than a ____________.”  Class Book

This book is easy to make when you have any object that is around the same size as your students.  We have done it with an inflatable emperor penguin and a scarecrow decoration.  Take a picture with each student standing beside the object.  Place the picture on the background of your choice, and use marker or tape lines to show that the student is taller/shorter than the object.

Concepts: Working on classmates’ names; Working on concepts of “taller” and “shorter”

Theme: Fall (081) or Winter (082)/Penguins (052.1)

“Shared Experiences” Class Books

The second type of class books that we make in my program is “shared experience” class books.  These books retell or describe a class event.  Here are some of the shared experience class books that we make in my program:

“Making Jack-o-Lantern/Pumpkin Patch Visit” Class Book

We use large die-cuts for the pages of these books, cut from posterboard or heavy cardstock.  We add just a few words to each page, such as “_______ picked a pumpkin.”, or “_______ scooped out the pumpkin”.

Shared Experience:  Making a jack-o-lantern (We’ve also used this book format to talk about a pumpkin patch field trip.

Theme: Halloween (194)

Skills: Working on classmates’ names;  Event retelling; Jack-o-lantern vocabulary (194)

“Bring a Bear Day” Class Book

We have a “Bring a Bear Day” every December, and we retell the experience with this “Bring a Bear Day” book.  The pages describe who brought which bear and show the things we did with our bears at school.

 Shared Experience:  Bring a Bear Day

Theme: Bears (051.1)

Skills: Working on classmates’ names; Event retelling; Bear vocabulary (051.1)

Gingerbread Houses Class Book

preschool student making a gingerbread house

Making “gingerbread” houses is another favorite day in our program.  We highlight this activity by making a book with everyone’s house in it.

Theme: Christmas (197)/Gingerbread (197)/Winter Holiday (082)

Skills: Working on classmates’ names; Event retelling; Gingerbread house vocabulary (197)

There are two different types of class books that we make.  The possibilities are really endless for these learning tools.

Also, want to know what to do with your class books at the end of the school year?  We bind them into the memory books that we send home at the end of the year!  See this post for more details.