Boston Bruins Who Am I? Book

I have joined Boston Globe columnist Brian McGrory on the Bruins bandwagon as they play in the Stanley Cup. You can read his great column, Jumping on the Zamboni, in today's Globe.

I was a huge hockey fan as a teenager but my interest waned when I went to college. It was hard to get my girls dorm mates to watch hockey on the shared TV. Plus the league had doubled in size a few years before and I had trouble adjusting. Growing up in New Jersey, I was a Rangers fan. My parents owned a luncheonette/corner store with my aunt and uncle. We sold magazines and the rule was that if I read them very carefully, I could bring home magazines and then return them. I read two hockey magazines a month. With only six teams in the league and two magazines a month, I knew the players well. In choosing my favorite Ranger, I went for the best looking one—Rod Gilbert who was also an excellent player. And if he weren't a Bruin, my favorite would have been Bobby Orr.

And now here I am loving the 2010-2011 Bruins. And what better way of jumping on a bandwagon than by making a book? In this case a Who Am I? Book about one of the Bruins players. I usually use a grocery bag panel for the Who Am I? Book but I wanted this book to be smaller. I used two sheets of used copy paper with the writing sides glued together and a coffee filter box. I found the Bruins logos and photo online.



Directions for a Who Am I? Book

in Spanish

I am... Book

Last month, I gave a series of workshops at the Cutler School in Hamilton, MA. At their request, I designed the projects around their theme for the year: Be responsible/Be respectful/Be your best.

I made this book with the second graders. I used the Who Am I? Book form in which four flaps open to reveal a center image. For my sample the front of the flaps said:

Front of flap:
1. I am responsible when I
On other side of lifted flap:
prepare for my classes.

2. I am respectful when I
listen to others.

3. I am my best when I
help others.

4. I am
Susan

I used the back panel of a grocery bag for the pages and a front or back panel of a cereal box for the cover which was then covered with papers from the collage box. The blue strip in the middle with the yellow and white leaves came from the chopstick sleeve at a Thai restaurant. Velcro was used for the closure. If the order in which the pages are read matters to you, you should number the pages. Also noticed how I fixed an error on Susan. For some reason, I first wrote it with a small s. I wrote an upper case S on a small piece of grocery bag and glued it over the small S--an easy way to fix a mistake.

Written Directions

In Spanish

See all the pages on flickr

Who Am I? Artist Book

I recently visited the Bowen Cooperative Nursery School in Newton, MA. The four year old class was learning about artists and we made a Who Am I? Book. I made a few adaptations to my usual presentation to suit the age of the children. Folding into thirds can be difficult so I drew pencil lines on each paper to serve as guides during folding. The paper was 10.5" (with lines at 3.5" and 7") by 16. 5" (with lines at 5.5" and 11"). We had plenty of adult hands to help and the kids did a terrific job. Here are directions for making your own Who Am I? Book. You can see photographs of the sample I made here.

Opening Day

http://www.makingbooks.com/whoami.shtml

Last year I was making books at the Bryn Mawr Elementary School in Auburn, MA on Opening Day of the Red Sox at Fenway Park. Everyone was dressed in Red Sox garb and the school cafeteria served hot dogs for lunch. One class made a Who Am I? Book and most of the class planned to make their books about Red Sox players. It is a reminder that children need to spend time writing about their loves and interests as well as curriculum material. This month's links are websites relating baseball and curriculum, but children can make books about their favorite stars of other sports, bands and singers, actors, actresses, dancers, and musicians. I made my book from the back panel of a grocery bag (the one without any writing). I used a cereal box for the cover and velcro instead of yarn. It's about one of my favorite Red Sox players, Jacoby Ellsbury.

LINKS

Major League Baseball
http://mlb.mlb.com/index.jsp
A good place to research players and teams.

Take Them Out To the Ball Game!
http://www.education-world.com/a_lesson/lesson107.shtml
Education World has a page with lots of links to sites for using baseball across the curriculum, including the text of Abbott and Costello's Who's On First? and several sites for baseball math.

Science of Baseball from the Exploratorium in San Francisco
http://www.exploratorium.edu/baseball/index.html
Lots of good stuff including how to find the sweet spot on a bat, an experiment with bouncing and temperature, how to throw different pitches using a styrofoam ball, and much more.

Math Baseball
http://www.funbrain.com/math/index.html
Answer addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division problems and hit the "Swing" button. Correct answers are hits. Whether it is a single, double, triple, or home run is based on the difficulty of the problem. Wrong answers are outs and the game lasts for three outs. There is a choice of levels from easy to superbrain and it can be played with one or two players.

Adapted from the April 2008 issue of Making Books Monthly
Free subscriptions available at makingbooks.com.