Our Class is a Family
[{'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on June 12, 2020', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'Our Class is a Family is my new favorite book. As a teacher myself, I could not have asked for a better book that represents our family at school. My students could relate to every page in this book. As we read about the different families they thought of their own families. As we read about the classroom families my student remembered how 2 of our friends had the same shirt, just like in the book. Also they remembered how in our morning meetings we talked about how mistakes help us grow and they were excited to see that in the book. They kept saying, “that’s just like us!” This book also shows how important kindness is and how we showed that the entire year. I read this book on the last day of school (at our last zoom) and it brought tears to their eyes. We talked about how those are tears of joy and how we will always have this special bond. I will use this book throughout the year. I can’t wait to start the new school year with this book too! I would recommend this book to every teacher. This also makes a great gift to any teacher. I will definitely be buying this for both of my children’s teachers.'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on June 6, 2020', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': '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.\n\nI can’t wait until fall! This will be the first activity we do! (aside from the washing hands routine because covid, you know ✌🏼)'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on July 22, 2020', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': '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!'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on May 23, 2020', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': '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! ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on May 31, 2020', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': '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!!!!'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on May 26, 2020', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': '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!!'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2020', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'My daughter will be starting preschool in the fall and this is a great book to help get her excited and emotionally prepared about being in a classroom for the first time. It’s hard to find good books with good messaging AND nice artwork (sometimes you only get one or the other) and I appreciate that this one focuses on things like being a good friend to others, which is something I want to instill in my daughter aside from just “be a good student” or “listen to the teacher.” Great book and I think I will also gift one to her classroom this fall, too!'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on May 27, 2020', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'I just got this beautiful book today! I am SO excited to read it to my class ! It will definitely be a book that will become a part of our Family Meetings! I am so excited thinking about all the lessons I can do to follow the reading of this book! The message that this book gives to students and teachers is POWERFUL! I strive for my students to feel a part of a class family and this book does a beautiful job at delivering that message and why we are a class family ! I can’t wait for my second graders to make a connection with this beautifully written book! I can already see their sweet faces and hearts falling in love with the illustrations and message. EVERY TEACHER NEEDS THIS BOOK!'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on May 29, 2020', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'Just received my purchase of Our Class is a Family from Amazon! It is a perfect book to begin discussion on the importance of classroom community, safe environment for learning/taking risks, & celebrating our unique qualities. I cannot wait to begin reading this in my classroom!'}, {'review_meta': 'Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2021', 'review_star': 'a-icon a-icon-star a-star-5 review-rating', 'review_body': 'The author of Our Class is a Family is a second grade teacher. I\'m a second grade teacher and my class loved the book this school year. This became our motto, in that our class is a family and that we are accepting of one another. This cute book gets the message across that each person is important and loved. We always try to "Stay Kind" and make our classroom a fun and safe place. The illustrations are bright and friendly. I will keep using this book every year and read it on the first day of school. I loved the feeling we had in my classroom and I hope to recreate it again next year.'}]