Class Books for the Win!

There's something magical about seeing children excited about reading a new book - the smiles on their faces, the effort they put into figuring out the words, the time they spend examining the images. But children's books aren't cheap, they don't always reflect the children we teach, and they aren't alway written to teach the things we want children to learn. The solution? Create your own class books!

Why Class Books?

• Kids love them — they are proud to read what they helped create.

• Targeted learning — build sight words, vocabulary, content knowledge, or social-emotional themes. Anything, really!

• Community building — creating something together deepens belonging and strengthens classroom community.

• Budget-friendly — build a rich library without breaking the bank.

• Representation — students see their lives, languages, and ideas in print.

• Engagement — when kids make the book, they want to read the book.

One of my all-time favorite class books was inspired by Black Cat by Christopher Myers. Over six weeks, students researched, wrote poetry, explored drawing and collage, and learned Arabic. We studied the book deeply, then created our own about Khartoum—celebrating Sudan with children’s art, family-provided translations, and community pride. The result was Kadisa, Kadisa—one of the very few picture books for young children about Sudan.

Most class books don’t take weeks. They might take as little as 20-30 minutes: children create the art, I type the text, and a few staples later, the book joins our classroom library.

Lower Elementary / Early Childhood

List books:

• My name is ____. (This has always been by far the most popular book in our kindergarten library. A quick picture of each child and 5 minutes of typing! This is also the book where many kindergarteners learned to one-to-one match in text.)

• I like ____.

• Words that start with M. 

• Class Number Book. Each child illustrates a different number.

• An acorn is round. An acorn is ________. (This is a great way to encourage careful observation and to build descriptive vocabulary.)

• We are thankful for...

Class reflections on events:

• Thank-you books: Have each student draw a portrait or other representation of a visitor. Take dictation or have kids share some appreciation.

• Interview books: Draw and write based on information from an interview. I have kids take notes and then choose one sentence they want to write and illustrate. Gift a copy to the interviewee!

• Goodbye books: Each child writes a memory or hope for a community member who is leaving.

• Hello books: Each child writes one thing a new community member should know about the class. That book gets gifted on or before the person's first day.

• Observation books: An acorn is round; Mealworms have pointy butts. (True story!)

• Book inspired books: 
• Sometimes it looked like... (inspired by It Looked Like Spilt Milk).
• 
  

Middle / Upper Elementary

• Summary books: Conclude nonfiction units with short student-written chapters or a class-designed outline including glossary and diagrams.

Song books:

• “Zipper” songs like This Little Light of Mine or Down By the Bay. Students can create a verse and illustrate their lyrics.

• Songs the class is learning to practice reading fluency and support comprehension - especially for multilingual learners!

Anthologies:

• Poetry collections, stories, or a recipe book from families.

Simple Books with Big Ideas:

• Create books on SEL themes like Misery is or Joy is. 

• Books for younger readers: Older kids write and illustrate picture books for younger classes.

Tips:

• Publish using correct spelling and punctuation so they have a clean text to reread. You can leave student writing there, too.

• Invite families to help translate pages—bilingual books build connection and pride. We translated Kadisa Kadisa into Sudanese Arabic, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, and French!

• If you can, try professionally printed books for older grades—unforgettable!

• No binding machine? Staple along a margin, add tape to the spine, and use cardstock covers.

At Home:

I made countless books for my son when he was little—Jibby’s Trip to the Zoo, Jibby's First Boat Ride, Jibby and Mikhail Go to Rye Playland and the Beech, The Pumpkin Patch, and more. Photos, a few lines of text, sometimes rhyme, sometimes simple captions—he adored being the main character. At 24, he still has them!

I published a new version of Kadisa كديسة .  Learn about Sudan's beauty, not just famine and violence. Click here to check it out. 

Click here to help my cousin, Mohanned create medical kits, teach first aid, and offer family support for families impacted by the violence in Sudan.

Teaching Matters

No lie, I started writing this blog in 2019. Better late than never?

I received a message on Instagram from a student I taught in Sudan. I take no credit for what a wonderful kid he was then, and I was so grateful to hear from him. He wrote:

I just wanted to write you because the events of the past year have really weighed on me, seeing two places I called home, Palestine (occupied) and Sudan in ruins. This time made me think a lot about what activism is and I’m realising how formative your lessons were to my concept of it. I recall learning about civil rights with you in class, singing Bob Marley, and feeling as though I can take in such heavy topics at such a young age and actually feel hopeful and not hopeless. I see how you speak up now as well and continue to be inspired. We need more teachers like you in the world to root out hate and bigotry, and I see it in all my classmates even today, and that’s beautiful!... I just wanted to thank you for nurturing and encouraging that in my youth, it helped me become who I am today :)

The choices we make matter.

I never allowed my son to have a toy gun. Not even a water gun. He had a water dolphin. My students were not allowed to pretend to shoot each other. They were not allowed to build weapons out of Legos. We didn't play killing. There is nothing joyful or fun about bullets or bombs.

I am not naive. I don’t pretend the world is peaceful. I recognize the world’s ugliness -- especially these past few years -- and its beauty. I talk about and mourn violent acts and celebrate when peace and joy triumph.

As an classroom teacher, I tried build peace within our classroom walls. We learned to sign “I love you” in ASL and my co-teachers and I always made sure kids shared greetings with the security guards and custodians and anyone who entered our room. We showed we cared about each other by making sure every kid got what they needed: a quiet and calm room, a piece of gum, a special seat, some time to dance, a hug, some time on a swing, a little space, some words of encouragement. We sang songs of struggle and love, freedom and friendship -- redemption songs. We read about activists who work to make the world a fairer, more equitable place. We practiced solving problems with our words.

In more than 20 years of teaching, I have taught hundreds of children. Through teaching we change the world. Our lessons may be magnified exponentially. Each child will take something from us into the rest of their lives. We must make sure we are thoughtful about what we are teaching - both explicitly and implicitly:

• Are we modeling kindness? 
• Are we teaching children to be thoughtful and critical consumers of information? 
• Are confronting bias openly and directly? 
• Do we acknowledge the humanity in each member of our community?
• Do we insist that children do? 

Years ago, my co-teacher and I told our kindergarteners that we care so much about the rules of our classroom because they are really rules for the rest of their lives. Even when they are grownups. Maybe especially when they are grownups:

Take care of yourself.

Take care of each other.

Take care of the commons (the spaces we share).

Skills and content are tools, power. They offer possibility and access. Reading must involve thinking, wondering, and seeking evidence. And choice! For the rest of their lives, we want children to be able to read what and how they want to, for the reasons they choose. We must help children to become fluent mathematicians so they cannot be fooled by people who would twist numbers into lies, so they recognize the inequity around them -- like that billionaires shouldn't exist -- and can use evidence to show that it must change. Writing shouldn't be mindlessly responding to insignificant prompts. Purposeful writing is about sharing our important ideas, stories, and information, crafting and revising carefully, adding compelling examples, so our voices cannot be ignored. 

Let's teach the world better.

Love, 

Rasha