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Friday, August 10, 2012

Kinds of Text Mini-Books

I'm in the middle of classroom preparation right now, trying to balance the fun tasks--setting out the classroom library, making posters, and planning lessons--with the more mundane tasks of schedules and seating charts.

As I was trying to tidy up my files, I found some pictures that I had made last spring. I created these while my own children drew at the dining room table, photographed them, and forgotten about them. With a little enhancing, they turned out to look pretty neat.

Why did I make miniature books? Well--why not? I love to draw miniature little pictures. (I have an entire fairy tale clothing line in a notebook that I use during faculty meetings. Trust me, it will make you actually like meetings.)

But these were drawn for a purpose. I start each school year by talking with students about different kinds of text--informational, persuasive, poetic, and narrative. Years ago I had made some basic black and white texts for students to sort into a 4-frame graphic organizer. Kids always enjoy working with the tiny little books, and love being able to make their own. This spring, I decided to make the task a little more glamorous by creating some colorful pictures. And I would have forgotten all about it if I hadn't been cleaning up my files! There is probably some lesson there about the virtues of cleaning up, but I will pretend that I have not learned it.

You can find some lessons and activities to go along with the mini-books here. The rest of the mini-books are embedded below. Follow the link to Slideshare, where you can download them. Just let me know if you use them and what you do with them.





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