Our Class is a Family - book cover
Growing Up & Facts of Life
  • Publisher : Shannon Olsen
  • Published : 05 May 2020
  • Pages : 27
  • ISBN-10 : 0578629097
  • ISBN-13 : 9780578629094
  • Language : English

Our Class is a Family

Teachers do so much more than just teach academics. They build a sense of community within their classrooms, creating a home away from home where they make their students feel safe, included, and loved.

With its heartfelt message and colorfully whimsical illustrations, "Our Class is a Family" is a book that will help build and strengthen that class community. Kids learn that their classroom is a place where it's safe to be themselves, it's okay to make mistakes, and it's important to be a friend to others. When hearing this story being read aloud by their teacher, students are sure to feel like they are part of a special family.

"Family isn't always your relatives. It's the ones who accept you for who you are. The ones who would do anything to see you smile, and who love you no matter what." -Unknown

Readers Top Reviews

DavidVanessa So
This book is PERFECT for building a classroom community. It addresses a wide variety of family styles (including a class family), and part of it talks about celebrating each others’ differences. There are a few pages that cover making mistakes and how to support each other when we make mistakes because they help us grow. The beautiful illustrations show a diverse set of children, which I think is so important. I think this book could be used as a read aloud with all grade levels! I plan to read it with 4th graders in the fall and hope for good conversations to come from it. 10/10 recommend!!
KarenDavidVanessa
The sweetest book to share with your students at the beginning of the year, as well as the end of the year. It brings home all of the feelings about what a classroom family is really like. A classroom is a place where we get to be ourselves, we celebrate what makes us each unique, we love and respect each other, we make mistakes, we grow in many ways, and we cheer each other on. A classroom is a safe place where we love each other and we are loved. The book brought tears to my eye. I also LOVE that the book is written by a second grade teacher!!!!
Kevin RallKarenDa
I just got this book delivered from Amazon today and it is absolutely adorable and perfect for reading the first and last days of school. It was written by a teacher, and talks about how all those hours spent learning together at school make us a family and is especially poignant and bittersweet this year when we look back to being in our classrooms. This book is just precious with a perfect, positive message (and rhyming text) and I highly recommend it! ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜
Kristen Sellentin
I absolutely LOVE this well beautifully written book! As a parent of young children the message of treating your class as you would your family is paramount. I teach my kids about acceptance, diversity, and empathy daily and that’s exactly the message of this books. The illustrations represent the written word perfectly and both are appealing to young kids, even my 2 year old understands and positively reacts to the concept of school being a family. I highly recommend this books for preschool/elementary school kids!
Brittany SoyKrist
LOVE THIS!!! I teach first grade and I have been working on two important things: 1. building a library for my classroom that is inclusive of all abilities and ethnicities and 2. building a strong classroom family (community). It’s difficult to convey your thought process into words, but this book does it perfectly. It takes every concept I’m trying to get across to my students about community and puts it into beautiful rhymes and pictures. Having such a diverse group of students, they can finally see themselves (all of them!) represented in a book and how they fit in to our classroom structure. I can’t wait until fall! This will be the first activity we do! (aside from the washing hands routine because covid, you know ✌🏼)

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