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!
