Summer School Bookmaking

I received a wonderful email from Liz Hopman who is using some of the projects from Handmade Books For A Healthy Planet and my website with her summer school class of kids from 2nd-4th grades. She reports that the kids are enthusiastic and I love the projects she has designed. Her writing ideas came from writingfix.com.

The class made the simple rubber band binding for the first hectic day with the book _All the Places to Love_. The kids made a list of their favorite places in their books. They did the Yakety Yak books the next day using the mentor text _I Am The Dog, I Am The Cat_. The kids decided they should be called the versus (vs.) books because their subjects were "against" each other. There were some pretty creative pairs: gumball vs. Pop-Tart, Mom vs. Dad, alligator vs. lion and Sponge Bob vs. Patrick.

Some other lessons she has planned are: _Silver Seeds_, (a book of acrostic poems), accordion time line book for kids to write their own acrostic poems; _Diary of a Worm_, (a journal book), stick and elastic for kids to make their own journal; and _The End_, (a backwards story), kids will make a palm leaf book with their own backwards story.

Father's Day Book

At a few of the family and student workshops I gave in the past week, kids made books for their fathers for Father's Day. It inspired me to make one in memory of mine. Several of the kids made books about their father's favorite things.

I used a piece of US Letter/A4 paper with writing on one side and a cereal box for the covers. I used paper from the collage box for the illustrations. I like the look of the design that extends across the pages but if you do it with collage papers, you'll have to recrease the folds for the book to fold up easily.


Written directions

in Spanish

Video

Some of the books from the workshop

Family Bookmaking with Kindergartners

I gave two family bookmaking workshops in Woburn, MA last week for the Title 1 Program. We used brown grocery bags and cereal boxes. I led the thirty plus students along with parents and fourth grade buddies through the making of 2 books using brown grocery bags and cereal boxes. They then filled their books using markers, stencils, and collage papers. I have a large assortment of small stencil books from Dover Publications and they were a big hit with this age. They also enjoyed the collage box. Some made books for their dads for Father's Day. Others wrote stories and drew pictures. I was gratified to hear many parents say that they would be making more books at home this summer—a perfect rainy day activity.

You can see photos from the workshop here.