Back-to-school books and Wixie

Combine Wixie with your favorite back-to-school picture books to welcome your students, make them authors immediately, and show them how exciting learning can be.

After reading a story to your students, encourage them to create an adaptation of the book using the text, paint, and image tools in Wixie.

Wixie's Curriculum library includes a range of story adaptation templates you can assign to students after reading your favorite back-to-school book. Use these ideas to get your students excited about reading and writing this school year.

Support young learners with a sentence stem

Our Class is a Family – Shannon Olsen

This story can help make your students feel welcome and special. Have students use a sentence starter to show how they can contribute to a classroom culture of caring, sharing, and learning.

"I can be a kind student this year by _______." (template)

Wixie project of a school and a student sharing how they can be kind this school year.

Place student work around your classroom to highlight ways your students can be kind to one another.

Pete The Cat: Rocking In My School Shoes - Eric Litwin

After reading this fun Pete the Cat story aloud to your students, brainstorm the different activities at school that students can partake in like reading, writing, or even eating yummy snacks. Use the My School Shoes template to have students write about school activities wearing their own unique shoes. "I’m _______________ in my school shoes." (template)

Wixie sample from a student of a red shoe and sharing how they are reading in their school shoes.

If You Take A Mouse to School - Laura Numeroff

Students love this humorous story of what happens when a mouse goes to school and how it keeps wanting more and more. Use Wixie's What’s Next template to have students create their own unique adaptation of this silly story.

"If you take a ___________ to ____________, it will want _____________." (template)

Wixie student sample of a cat on the counter and wanting milk at Nana's house.

When you are finished, combine individual student work into one class book to share the work of your budding authors.

This is the Way We Go to School - Edith Baer

Kick off the school year with Edith Baer's rhyming story about all the ways students arrive at school. Assign This is the Way We Go to School to explore all of the ways your students get to class.

"____________ (name) takes ____________, in order to _____________." (template)

If I Built a School - Chris Van Dusen

Students will love this story about Jack who uses wild imagination to describe how he would transform his plain old school into something spectacular. Read If I Built a School to provide students with inspiration for their own innovative dream school design.

“My dream school includes ____________." (template)

Young learners can use the text dictation tool to easily add text to the page as they discuss their design plans. To do this, students select the text box and click the Microphone button.

You can even take it a step further, and help students build their geometric understanding by having them build their dream school with composite shapes using the Shape tool on the authoring panel.

Challenge emerging writers with an open-ended approach

One of the best parts of Wixie is that it provides a blank canvas for students to showcase their diverse perspectives and backgrounds. Use these titles to see creativity come alive in your classroom.

Dear Teacher - Amy Husband

Students will love this story about Michael and his silly letters to his teacher about why he simply cannot attend school for the coming year. After reading the Dear Teacher collection of hilarious letters aloud to your students, ask students to write you a letter about something they are looking forward to this school year.

Search “Friendly Letter” from your Wixie homepage to find a variety of writing templates you can assign to help guide student work.

Wixie's template library showing stationery options.

If your students are ready to take on more responsibility, have them browse Wixie’s Stationery folder in the Templates library at their own Wixie home page to choose the design they want to use for their letter.

The Name Jar - Yangsook Choi

Starting a new school can be a challenge for many students, especially when they are new to the area. After sharing The Name Jar with your students, ask them to create an acrostic poem of their name that shares their interests and things that make them feel special. (template)

The Day You Begin - Jacqueline Woodson

This beautiful story is about having the courage to start something new, even when they feel different or scared.

Encourage students to write and illustrate a story that shares their experience and voice. Students can select the New button in Wixie and choose the Book option to find a variety of colorful layouts and ideas to spark their writing.

Young learners don't have to type. Instead, have them combine images they create with the paint tools or add from the image library with voice, or even video, narration.

Looking for more back-to-school ideas?

The ideas listed above all have templates already in Wixie. You can also use Wixie's authoring tools to craft templates with sentence stems and story starters of your own to create the perfect assignment for your learners.

You can also use Wixie for all about me projects, goal setting, and activities to help students learn classroom rules.

Wishing you all a fabulous school year. Be sure to share your own ideas using the hashtag #wixie on Twitter and Instagram.