Make a Book About Your Family! (Ages 5-7)

In this class, students will create a simple book to draw and write about their families! Our families are all unique and it can be so much fun to look back on memories with them. What a great way to hold these memories forever by writing them in a book! After class, I will upload a certificate for each student congratulating them for being an author!

After introductions, students will first make their books, and then be guided through writing their stories. You can also watch the pre-class video at the top of this page to see how to make your book if you'd like to assemble it before class. Once the books are assembled, we will design the cover of the book. I will have the students create a title, put their name as the author, and perhaps draw a picture of their family on the cover. Next, they will create a title page, just like in a real book. Finally, students will begin writing and drawing about their families inside the book. I want to steer away from telling students what to write while also being conscious of staying within the class time frame. Therefore, I will mainly be guiding them through writing their own stories from their own imaginations, but I will also have ideas for titles and sentence frames ready to use and tailor to their family if needed. Some students, even very young, naturally come up with their own sentences and stories and enjoy doing this as opposed to having someone tell them what to write. Others would prefer to have sentence frames ahead of time to fill in. I can work with both, but if your child might be too shy during class to let me know they need help, please let me know that in advance. 

Also, please keep in mind that because some children take a lot of time drawing pictures, at some point during class I will assess where students are at with their stories. Then I will suggest that if they don’t have enough time to draw all the pictures during class, that’s okay because we want to make sure they have their story completely written, and then they can always finish the pictures after class is over.

Students can talk about their family members and things they like to do, things they like to eat, places they like to go, favorite memories, and more. It's all up to the student's imagination and experience! I will explain all of this to the learners during class. If I were to write my book about my family I might say, "This is my family. I have a mom, a sister, a brother, and a niece. We like to eat different kinds of food, but we especially like to eat pasta because we are part Italian. We have three cats named Honey, Patches, and Angel. They are part of our family, too. We like to go to the movies sometimes, and to eat out at restaurants. We also like to play board games like Scrabble. My family is special to me and I'm so thankful for them!"

To make the book you will need 3 sheets of white paper, one sheet of colored paper, a pencil, a pair of scissors, a standard stapler, and crayons or colored pencils. I do not recommend markers because they will bleed through the pages.

I look forward to creating with your children and hope they take these books away as a positive memory of a fun activity as well as a keepsake about their beloved families!