Student Treasures allows your classroom to publish a hard-cover book for free.
You do have to offer copies of the book for sale to students’ parents but whether they buy or not your classroom gets a free copy of the book.
I’ve used this company and although I normally don’t recommend commercial services, the book we received though was awfully cool.
Get a book making kit here.
I would highly encourage reluctant teachers to complete a project such as this. I did and it was one of the most rewarding moments in my teaching career. It was crazy near deadline, and I thought I would just might fall over the deep end, but it was all worth it. When the books arrived you should have seen the students’ faces.
Wow–this is too cool. Thanks for sharing. I think–next year–I might introduce this project day one, having students creating the book all year ( a bit like a portfolio), collecting different types of writing. I can envision arranging the book by genre, requiring each student to submit at list one piece for publication in the class book.
My class did a winter poetry book 3 years in a row. Once it was finished and returned we had a poetry reception and invited parents and grandparents to come and listen to the children read their poem(s). Some children wrote one or two poems on the lined side of the paper and then did a shape poem on the onlined side. Most parents bought the book and those that didn’t were disappointed that they didn’t. After the first year I always showed the book at open house so they could see the quality of the book. I would highly recommend this site as well.