Publishing Kindergarten Authors

Do you publish your students' writing?  

Each spring, we host an amazing event called Author's Morning.  It is an event to celebrate our Kindergarten authors and the amazing books they have created.  It's a ton of prep work for me but the end result is totally worth it.  

Here's what it looks like in my Kindergarten classroom...

We start around the end of April and review character, setting, problem, and solution.  We talk about beginning, middle, and endings.  We review what good author's do to keep their readers' interested in their stories, how illustrators create pictures to match the words to help readers understand the story, and all of that great stuff!

Then, we brainstorm story ideas.

I love this graphic organizer from Deanna & Deedee's Writing Units.

Once the kiddos have chosen an idea, they plan their stories.

We spend some time sharing our ideas with our writing partners, too.

I make books for each of the students with a cover page and over the next week or so, the kids write rough drafts of their stories.

 

When their stories are finished, I meet with each student to "edit" and type up their stories.  If any part of the story is confusing or unclear, I ask questions so my little authors can clarify with their own words.  Sometimes, there isn't a clear ending so we might work on that too during the editing process.

Next, we are ready to publish!

I print out the pages of each child's story.  I also make a blank title page, dedication page, and About the Author page.  We work on final drafts for about 2 weeks!

In the past, I've made the covers out of construction paper, laminated them, and stapled the pages inside.  But this year, I came across the most AMAZING book binding machine!

The Book Creator from Premier Binding!

This machine is SO easy to use.  No more fighting with plastic combs or worrying about jamming things in the laminator.  This machine uses heat to bind books in just 90 seconds!  

You don't even have to wait for it to warm up...just plug it in and it's ready to go.

All you have to do is stack up the pages of your book, place them in a cover, and place the whole thing in the Book Creator.  Wait the 90 seconds (until the light turns green) and you're done!

I finished binding 20 student books in just over 30 minutes!

My Kinders were so excited to see their stories turned into real books!

Premier Binding has a variety of covers to choose from that you can see here.  They're great for class books, memory books, writer's workshop stories, and much more.

 Are you interested in getting one for yourself?

If you use the promo code ALWAYSKDG, you will receive 20% off anything sold at Premier Binding!  Or give them a call and ask for Jay.  He was wonderful to work with!  Be sure to mention the promo code to receive your 20% discount!