Some students at Hawthorne Elementary School can now call themselves published authors after completing a special project this week.

For first-grade teacher Joan Boyenga’s class, the project involved the students picking out a book about an animal, reading that book and then filling out an organizer about what they read.

The students then wrote a page in their own words with facts about the animal they selected and drew a picture of that animal.

Boyenga said the students had to check for things such as periods, spaces and capitalization in their writing, and often they had to rewrite the reports.

After completing them and checking for errors, each report in Boyenga’s class was compiled into a book published by Studentreasures Publishing called “First Grade Informational Animal Reports.”

Boyenga and Hawthorne Principal Karen Zwolenski presented the finished books to the students on Thursday.

“I just get so excited because the curriculum makes it so easy to have everything flow together,” Boyenga said.

In first grade, the students learn about being an author and an illustrator, and making their own books is a perfect way to help them learn these concepts, she said. The project also promotes reading and writing.

Avery Mauer, 7, said he picked to learn more about skunks.

“It’s funny,” Mauer said about what he learned. He said the musk that skunks spray is a smelly, yellow liquid.

Student Arianna Stone said she learned about cats.

“Cats make good pets,”she said.

The book is strictly voluntary for the classrooms, but Boyenga said there are a handful of other teachers participating. Each teacher decided what would go in the book.