Teacher Help Center
Welcome to the Teacher Help Center. Here you’ll find step-by-step guides to help you set up your classroom, run a smooth book project, and celebrate your students as published authors. Whether you’re just getting started or looking for a quick how-to, everything you need is right here.
👩🏫 Create a Teacher Account
📘 How to Make Your First Book
📚 Setting up your class and getting started
Teacher Onboarding
This guide walks you through the full teacher onboarding flow on Build My Story, starting from selecting your role and grade level to creating your first classroom and setting up a class project with a celebration date.
Select Where Students Will Create Their Books
Select whether you’ll be using Build My Story with your class at school or letting students complete their books at home.
With My Class is best if you plan to run the project during school hours and manage it yourself.
At Home lets parents help their child complete the book outside of class, while you still oversee the project.
Once you’ve selected the option that fits your plan, click Continue to move on.
Select Grade Level
Choose all the grade levels that apply to your classroom. This information helps us understand who you’re teaching and how you’re using Build My Story. It won’t affect what your students see.
Enter Number of Students
Let us know how many students will be taking part in your class project. This helps us prepare your classroom setup and estimate materials like login cards and flyers.
Enter Your School Name
Type the name of your school so we can personalize your project and make sure it’s correctly labeled in your classroom dashboard. If you’re not connected to a school, you can enter “Homeschool” or “Independent.”
After filling the details, click Continue to proceed.
Create a Classroom
Choose any name that works for you, such as “Bluebirds,” “Room 12,” or “Mrs. Lopez’s Class.” This helps you stay organized, especially if you decide to create more classrooms later. You can add additional classrooms at any time.
After naming your classroom, click Continue to proceed.
Select a Celebration Date
Pick the date you plan to celebrate your students becoming published authors. This helps us keep your project on track and remind you when it’s time to print flyers or prepare books.
You can change this date later if needed in the project settings.
Select a Celebration Time
Choose the time of day you plan to celebrate your students’ published books. This helps us schedule reminders and make sure everything arrives on time. You can adjust this later if your plans change.
After selecting your time, click Continue to complete setup.
Confirm Celebration Date
Take a moment to review the celebration date and time you selected. This helps us keep your project on schedule and ensure your materials are ready in time. You can always update the date later from your project settings.
If everything looks good, click Confirm to continue.
Add Students
Enter your students’ names, one per line. You don’t need to use full names, just something that helps you tell them apart. This list is private and won’t be shared with anyone.
If you have students with the same first name, add a letter to tell them apart.
Examples:
JohnA, JohnB
EmmaL, EmmaT
ChrisM, ChrisT
When you’re ready, click Create to add your classroom.
Or, if you prefer to add students later, click I’ll do this later to skip this step for now.
Story Details
This guide walks you through how to complete the Story Details page on Build My Story, including choosing a setting and goal, picking a story type, writing style, and art style, and understanding how page totals and reading levels work.
Choose Your Character Name
This is the name of the main character in the story. On the next page, you’ll choose whether they’re a human, animal, or fictional creature – so take a moment to think about who your main character will be.
Select Reading Level
Estimated Word Count Per Page: 10
Designed for early learners who are just beginning to explore text. Sentences are simple, repetitive, and supported heavily by images. Great for preschool or kindergarten students, or any child not yet reading independently.
Estimated Word Count Per Page: 40
Ideal for young readers who are starting to read short sentences on their own. Books use simple vocabulary and straightforward sentence structure. Suitable for early primary grades (typically ages 5–7).
Estimated Word Count Per Page: 60
For confident readers who can read full paragraphs with some support. This level introduces more complex ideas and vocabulary while keeping the content age-appropriate. Best for mid-to-late primary grades (ages 7–10).
Estimated Word Count Per Page: 80
Choose this if the story is being written by an adult or for an adult reader. Includes longer, more descriptive language and assumes a higher reading comprehension level. Often used by educators or parents writing as a sample or keepsake.
Enter Story Setting & Goal
In this step, write a few sentences about your main character’s age, dream, and what they’ll need to do to achieve it. Keep it short, realistic, and focused on effort, motivation, and personal growth.
📝 Example:
Emma is 12 years old. When she turns 25, she wants to be a professional netball player and compete in tournaments. She knows she’ll need to practice a lot, work well with her team, and always stretch before and after games. She wants to play netball because she loves it and feels excited every time she steps on the court.
This helps guide the story with a clear goal and positive mindset.
Select Story Type
This is where you decide what kind of story your child will tell. Whether it’s an exciting adventure, a calming bedtime tale, or a magical fairytale, each story type gives your author a different way to express their creativity. Pick the style that best fits their personality or the message they want to share.
A gentle, calming story that helps children wind down and get ready for sleep.
A short story that teaches a moral or lesson, often with animals as characters.
A magical story with make-believe characters like princesses, dragons, or talking animals.
An exciting story where the main character faces big challenges or goes on a daring journey.
A story designed to help children learn something new, like a fact, skill, or life lesson.
A curious story where something needs to be solved or discovered by the main character.
A futuristic or space-themed story with science, technology, or imaginary worlds.
A story that feels like real life, with believable characters and situations.
Select Writing Style
Writing style is the overall tone and feeling of the story. It shapes how the story sounds and how it makes the reader feel – whether it’s funny, inspiring, spooky, or educational. Choosing a style helps set the mood and guides how the story is written from start to finish.
Select Art Style
To select 3D Animation, simply choose it from the Art Style dropdown on the Story Details page.
✨ This style creates bold, expressive characters and scenes — like the one shown here — making your book look like a mini animated movie. It’s fun, vibrant, and visually exciting for kids.
Select Language
You can choose to have your entire story written in English, Spanish, French, or German. Whatever language you select here will apply to all the pages of the book, including the title, narration, and any character dialogue.
Select Number of Pages
Here’s how page count works:
You can choose from 16, 20, 24, or 28 pages. Each book includes:
16 pages → 5 illustrations
20 pages → 7 illustrations
24 pages → 9 illustrations
28 pages → 11 illustrations
The remaining pages include the front cover, title page, credits, and other default pages.
When you’re ready, press “Continue to Build My Character” to move on.
Build My Character
This guide walks you through how to complete the Build My Character page on Build My Story, including setting the character’s name, age, appearance, and clothing, so the book feels personal and visually accurate to the child it’s made for.
Choose Your Character Type
Choose what kind of character will be the star of your story:
Human is for when the hero is yourself or another human character.
Animal lets you turn your favorite pet or animal into the main character.
Fictional opens the door to wild imagination. Create a magical creature, robot, alien, or anything you dream up.
Character Type Example: Human
For a human character, you’ll need to fill in age, gender, and character appearance.
Gender: Choose either boy or girl.
Age: This helps us match the character’s behavior and storyline to their age.
Character Appearance: Be as specific as possible. Include details like hair type and color, eye color, skin tone, and clothing. Describe outfits head to toe, including shoes and colors.
For example:Brown curly hair, blue eyes, olive skin, blue t-shirt, blue trousers, white Air Force trainers, green socks.
Character Type Example: Animal
For an animal character, you’ll need to fill in animal type and description.
Animal Type: Describe the kind of animal (e.g., red dog, black cat, spotted leopard).
Description: Add clear details about what the animal looks like, including size, color, eye color, and any special features like floppy ears, stripes, or bushy tails.
For example:Large red dog with blue eyes and floppy ears.
Character Type Example: Fictional
For a fictional character, you can create anything your imagination dreams up — from wizards to aliens to magical creatures.
Character: Give your character a name or role (e.g., Wizard, Robot, Space Princess).
Description: Add key details to help bring the character to life, such as clothing, accessories, colors, body features.
For example:Purple cloak, wooden staff with large diamond on end, stars on cloak, big grey beard, male
Select Existing Character
You can access all your previously created characters using the Character Library button in the top-right corner.
Click Character Library.
Browse through your saved characters.
Click Select Existing Character to pull it directly into your current book project.
⚠️ Important: Once a character is selected and added to the book, you won’t be able to change it later in the process. Make sure you’re happy with your choice before moving forward.
Build My Story
This guide walks you through how to complete the Build My Story page, including how to edit text and images, use the image library, add new characters, and update the author name and book title.
Edit Text
Click on “Edit Text” below any image.
Make your changes, then click “Update Text” to save. This updates the text shown on the page of the book.
Edit Image
Click “Create New Image”
Describe the new image you want in the box on the left. Make sure to also update the text as described in the previous step so it matches the image. When ready, click “New Image” to generate it.
How To View Image Library
Click “Image Library” under any image to browse your previously generated images.
Choose the one you want and click “Choose Image” to insert it into the book.
How To Add a New Character
Follow the same steps as in “Edit Image”
Click “Select New Character.”
You’ll be able to pick an existing character from your character library or create a new one. If you need help, see the Build My Character guide.
Select character then click “Select Existing Character”
Then click “New Image” and make sure to update the text to reflect your new character. Note: only one character can be added per image for now.
How To Edit The Book Title
Click the pencil icon next to the book title, type your changes, then click “Save.”
How To Edit The Author Name
Click the pencil icon next to the author name, type your changes, and click “Save.”
How to Run the Program in Class
This guide shows you how to run a successful Build My Story session in your classroom from start to finish. You’ll learn how to add students, prepare your materials, log students in, help them create their books using worksheets, and support them through the editing and celebration steps. Everything is covered in order so you can run your session smoothly and confidently.
How to Add Students
Click on “Add Students” and then continue to follow the steps outlined in the Add Students guide HERE.
How to Download Pre-Session Flyers
Select all Students participating in class
Click “Pre-Session Flyer”
Click to “Open Generated Flyers”
A new tab will open with a file containing flyers for every student in your class. Print the flyers and send them home with students to share with a parent or guardian. This gives families a chance to see what their child created and preorder a book.
How To Print Student Passwords
Click “Print Passwords”
Print and handout login details for students and then proceed to next step.
How To Log Students Into Devices
Open up devices for each student and then head over to the Log In Page
Then each student needs to select ‘Kid’
Choose the suitable option, whether you are running the program in school or as a homework task. Note that if the student is logging in at home, their parent or guardian needs to create an account to monitor.
This is the student login page. Each student will now have a Username and password. They are to enter the details and login.
Then each student will follow the sameprocess outlined in How To Make Your First Book.
How To Manage Students
Click on a Student Username to add a book credit. This is helpful if there are any errors or your student wants to create another book.
Click “Add Book Credit” which will increase the book balance by 1
How To Generate Post-Session Flyers
Once your students have completed the editing process, you can now send home flyers to parents for them to view and purchase the book.
To do this, click “Select Story”
Select all stories that students have created. If students have created multiple books, then you can send home multiple flyers.
Click “Print Flyers”
Click “Open Generated Flyers”
Here, you can print and hand out the flyers for parents to view and purchase the book if they haven’t already
