Ms. DiGiacomo’s kindergarten class at Washington and their published classbooks
Entering the National Book Challenge: Creating a Class Book and Winning Prizes
One perk to publishing a classbook: The chance to win money for your school!
All books submitted to Studentreasures for publishing by May 31 of each year are automatically entered into the #NationalBookChallenge. All entries will receive printable participation ribbons and certificates.
Judges will review all entries submitted and select semi-finalists, finalists and winners based on originality, storyline and illustration.
Prizes include:
- Up to 50 finalists each receive $50 gift card as well as a printable certificate featuring their book cover
The top three will be given a classroom set of their book, a winner ribbon and printable certificate featuring their book cover AND:
- Overall third place: $500 school grant
- Overall second place: $1,000 school grant
- Overall first place: $5,000 school grant
The National Book Challenge is a chance to shine a spotlight on your students and let them experience being published authors. And we make it easy with our FREE publishing kit!
National Book Challenge: How to Create a Class Book
The first step to creating a classbook and joining the #NationalBookChallenge with your class is picking a publishing date and ordering your free publishing kit from Studentreasures. Remember, the publishing date is the date you choose that your kits are due to back to Studentreasures for publishing.
Next, you’ll select the kit layout that works best for your class:
Within 7-10 business days, you’ll receive your kit. In your kit, you’ll find the following pieces:
- 66 Kit Pages: 33 for Text & 33 for Illustration
- Cover, Title, Dedication and Author Page
- A Student-Created Sample Book
- Step-by-Step Teacher Guide
- Replacement Materials
- Parent Order Forms
Next, comes the fun part. Start working on the book with your class! Figure out how you’ll approach the book—Writing prompt(s)? A general topic? Tell a story? Fiction? Non-fiction?
Students in Ms. Michels’ class working on final drafts!
Check out our blog where you’ll find a treasure trove of ideas and topics covered about creating a classbook. You’re sure to find some inspiration. Also, make sure you look over the sample books and book topic ideas page—another excellent resource to get you started.
A few tips to keep in mind as you work on your classbook:
- Use washable markers to create the illustrations, and use black ink for the final handwritten stories.
- No crayons or colored pencils, please!
- If a student messes up on what was supposed to be the final version, don’t worry. Replacement pages are available to print in our Resource Center.
Now just watch and see what your students dream up for their pages. Each student contributes their own writing and illustration to the classbook.
The final step is the publishing process. A week before your publishing date, pack up your completed materials and order forms in the box your kit arrived in. Then, send it back to us using the prepaid label included in your kit. Once your kit arrives at our facility, it will be transformed into a published book.
After you complete your classbook pages and send them back to us, your students’ hard work will be put together in one amazing classbook. Look forward to seeing their proud faces when they see the final product!
Don’t miss out on experiencing the excitement that your students will have when the books arrive to the classroom.
Ms. Adams’ class 3A has a room full of published authors!
Publish your unique classbook with us by and you will automatically be entered into the contest to win up to $5,000 in prizes. It’s that easy!