So you raided the Target Dollar Spot and stocked up on some blank mini books for your classroom. Now what?
I love the blank books almost as much as my students do. I use them for almost every final draft writing project, and my students get so excited about “publishing” books. It truly increases motivation and engagement, and I always love the final products!
Lined Pages (Free!)
First I created some blank, lined templates with lines of various sizes. (Why doesn’t Target start making LINED books??) These can be used for anything and everything! With these templates, I usually pre-cut them for my students quickly with my paper cutter. It only takes a moment and cuts down on distractions.
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Then I got excited and wanted to use blank books for ALL THE THINGS. My second graders needed some help with organizing their books and making them neat, so I created some templates. Here are a few templates that I have created and used in my own classroom…
Poetry Mini Books
This poetry book can be used as a tool to teach your students about five different types of poetry: acrostic, shape, haiku, personification, and diamante. This product includes an example, a scaffolded prompt (You Try It!), and a blank space (Write Your Own) for each type of poem.
“I love how structured this poetry resource is. It allows students to be creative but provides the support they need!” – Erika B., 3rd grade teacher
VIP Book
One of my favorites is the VIP book. Use this book as a tool to have your students keep track of the historical figures that they learn about and have a keepsake to take home at the end of the year. Or, use it as your star student book. It’s up to you!
I used this book to create some cross-curricular connections when I was teaching European explorers in social studies and wanted to tie in informational writing.
When I introduce this book to my students, I like for them to complete the first page about themselves.
Research Projects
Last, I made a few templates to help my students write informational texts about topics that fit with our content standards. Click on the links below to view the matching product descriptions on TPT.
- My State
- Biography
- Animal
- Georgia Regions (heeey GA teachers!)
- *Discounted Bundle of All Books*
Each of the resources includes a recording sheet to help students track and organize information as they research.
Mini Books Management Tips
- Use a paper-cutter to pre-cut the pages for your students. This isn’t necessary, but cuts down on the mess.
- Give students one page at a time. The process in my classroom is as follows: Students write a rough draft for one paragraph (one page), they edit it, bring it to me to be edited, then I give them the page to write the final copy.
- Kids keep all of their pages in a folder. They glue down the pages once all pages are finished, so that they can be arranged strategically to make room for illustrations and such.
- We save the cover for last! Students get to design their cover as a reward for finishing their books.
- I like to keep the books on display for a few weeks so students can read and celebrate their classmates’ work.
Have fun publishing!
Susan K. says
I also bought a bunch of these books at Target – I like your ideas! Also, Photobucket has photobombed your blog. To remove, go to your layout and check the html gadgets until you find the Photobucket one and delete. p.s. It took me forever to figure out how to remove this annoying gadget.
primary practice says
Ughhh to photobucket! I've been emailing them for weeks trying to find out how to remove that big, ugly widget- even asked if I need to delete my photos or account with them. Their emails never explained anything. They just want an upgrade to a paid account 😤 Anyway THANK YOU Susan K fornyour fix! I did it and it worked!!!!!
School and the City says
Yay! I finally fixed it thanks to you! Thanks for the help.
primary practice says
Genius way to use these books!