One of our ongoing educational programs that our students participate in is, All Kids Can Be Authors ( publishers too). Our program is a collaborative authoring of a book written, illustrated and published by our students.
The goal of our “All Kids Can Be Authors” is to help support the skills they learn while in the classroom, writing, creative thinking, teamwork and collaboration, art, goal setting, presentation skills and more.
At the beginning of the school year the children pick a theme, this year it’s about a Brown Bear and what he sees on his adventures. Once they choose a theme and topic, the children begin to contribute writing and art throughout the year. What is fun about this program is that the story is a living breathing tale from a child’s perspective that at the end results in a written by kids for kids book. Once the story is told, it is printed and bound and multiple “runs” (copies made). It is a real book after all! Next, our “authors” host a book launching just like the big authors do!
This years book release is “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?”
Launch Party was a big success!
Idea: You can do this at home too! Journaling can be a great way for you to encourage your child to practice their writing, story telling, creativity and even reporting skills.
Available at most box stores are blank page journal or art paper books that are already bound. We suggest buying the large sized one so your child has plenty of room to draw, write and embellish their pages. You can even have handy glue sticks, colored pencils, markers or crayons, child friendly scissors and more for adding additional media, art and creative embellishments.
- Keep a family journal where all members contribute to the story. You could even have “writing & story telling time” once a month where the family sits down talks about what happened that month, things they thought about and did. Journal it where each family member contributes a note, drawing or even photos to the journal.
- Child keeps his own journal. “as I grow”, ” I’m 5 hear me roar!’ – a ongoing journal/story about what your child learns, see’s and does. Major news event? have them draw and write about it that too.
- Create a journal of a upcoming event, vacation. “The Smith’s wild adventure to Sea World” Not only would it be a opportunity for your child to write about what they saw and did but you could also encourage them to write about the “characters they meet” as well.
We hope we inspired you to continue the adventure of “All Kids Can Be Authors” too.
