Inside the Mailbox: a student-created book!

 I'm very excited to share this masterpiece on my blog!  The Grade 7 & 8 class at Decker School just released a book called "Inside the Mailbox".  The book was written and illustrated by this talented group of students over the past several weeks.  It began back in January when we read "The Day the Crayons Quit" by Drew Daywalt and illustrated by Oliver Jeffers.  

I was inspired to share this book with students and teachers after seeing Ms. McLauchlan's suggestion for using it as a writing prompt.  The read aloud definitely sparked a wonderful writing project in this case.  Students brainstormed different possessions that might have complaints and then narrowed it down to the four "characters" for their book.  Their teacher, Elias Wipf, supported them with the writing process as they drafted and revised letters from the perspective of each possession.  Each student wrote 4 letters from their selected item.  They also drew incredible illustrations to match.  The letters and illustrations were put together using Mixbook.com, which is a tool designed for digital scrapbooking, but allowed for the students to have a digital book that could be professionally printed.  

I visited the student-authors this week and was thrilled to see this incredible book they've created together!  They have given me permission to share their work and I hope that so many other people will enjoy reading their book too. View it here!