Northview students publish book

Imagine being a published author­—in the fifth grade!

Students at Northview Elementary School have accomplished that. All students, in fact!

Each year Northview teacher Ashlie Thompson and her students pick a social studies topic that interests them. Every fifth grade student participates.

This year’s topic was “Traveling to all 50 states.”

“Kayla Miracle, who is the reading teacher for fifth grade, partners with me,” Thompson told the Advocate. “We create groups with all our classes and they all created a writing piece about their state and pictures to represent it. Students first were assigned a state they did research on and found interesting and fun facts.”

All that information was put together and had to be approved, then students created pictures to along with writing.

For example, the students’ book notes that Kentucky has more miles of running water than any other state except Alaska.

While Kentucky is known for horse racing and bourbon, did you know that 95 percent of the world’s bourbon is actually produced right here in the Bluegrass, according to the book.

Some more fun facts you can find in the book: The oldest public park in America can be found in Massachusetts—Boston Common. Basketball was also discovered in Massachusetts.

Thompson said she works with a company called Studentreasures Publishing. They send a kit to the school.

“We create our book for free. We put it all together then mail the company our book. They ship everything free to and from the school.”

It’s the third year publishing a book, Thompson said.

“It’s a great project. We get to watch our students be creative but they are also learning in the process. This is a great keepsake for our students but also our school,” Thompson told the Advocate.

Parents can purchase the book by visiting https://studentreasures.com.