The creators of this animation for the New Zealand Book Council use paper craft amazingly to make a statement about the experience of entering the world of a book.
Lots of pockets
November 23rd, 2009 § 0
Last summer I took a workshop at the Wells College Book Arts Summer Institute with the fabulous Hedi Kyle, inventor of the flag book and other unusual structures. Hedi has the ability to visualize how a single sheet of paper can fold into an elaborate structure with pages and pockets. One of the many projects she taught was an album with pockets for pages to hold photos or postcards. It would make a wonderful card portfolio for kids. Better yet, Nancy Leavitt, who was teaching calligraphy upstairs, showed me a somewhat more primitive version of this book made from a Tyvek window shade purchased from Home Depot. I tried out this simplified approach to make a holder for gift cards, and decided it would be quite manageable with kids.
This is the postcard version.
A section of Tyvek window shade with glued tabs. The pockets are on the reverse side.
School’s out!
July 4th, 2009 § 0
This is the view from my car headed to Maine. I probably will have little to say for the next two months.
Idioms
July 4th, 2009 § 0
Kids enjoy learning colorful, silly figures of speech. Starting at about eight years old they can appreciate that the expressions have a meaning completely different from what the words say.
This long accordion flap book was made by fourth graders and used for a sort of guessing game — the viewer tries to figure out the idiom from its literal illustration. Behind the flap is the written expression with the child’s explanation of what it means.
Fun books to use to start a discussion about idioms are Butterflies in My Stomach and Other School Hazards by Serge Bloch and There’s a Frog in My Throat: 440 Animal Sayings a Little Bird Told Me by Loreen Leedy and Pat Street. The Scholastic Dictionary of Idioms by Marvin Terban helps kids discover the meaning of all the common figures of speech. Apparently this activity can become obsessive — a teacher in British Columbia has collected hundreds of humorous literal illustrations of idioms by 9 – 11 year olds on a web site called Idioms by Kids.
Poetry to go
May 7th, 2009 § 0
The Academy of American Poets promotes April as National Poetry Month. These handy poetry dispensers and pockets full of poems to go were created for Poem in Your Pocket Day on April 30, when everyone is encouraged to keep a poem on hand at all times to share with others.
Books as Gifts, Part 2
April 12th, 2009 § 0
As a service learning project, a group of eighth graders studied the causes of homelessness and the link between homelessness and illiteracy. They designed and illustrated books to donate to a day care center for homeless children. The big, colorful books were about concepts such as shapes, colors, and numbers. The pages were laminated, punched, and bound with metal rings. At the end of the project, the students visited the daycare center, where they and the children read the books together.
PocketMod
March 15th, 2009 § 0
PocketMod, an online application designed to create personal organizers, can be adapted to publish children’s work in mini books measuring 2 ¾ x 4 ¼ when folded from a single piece of paper. The template options include lines, grids, and a story board with a place for a small illustration. A finished book can be photocopied before folding to create an edition of multiple copies. Be sure to trim the page around the outside guideline before folding.
Sonnets
March 11th, 2009 § 0
Ninth graders used the four room structure of the Museum Book to analyse and respond to Shakespeare sonnets. With collage, cut-outs, pop-ups, banners, flaps, and pockets, they brought attention to themes and the relationship between different parts of the sonnet.
Flip Flap Facts
March 2nd, 2009 § 0
Snow day today. I had extra time to think about a book design for Statue of Liberty facts for fifth grade. They’ll be looking up facts in the library, potentially a boring and frustrating task. I hope to enliven it with teamwork, a variety of sources (evaluating sources will be part of the task) and a book project.
My plan is that each student will make a book with three facts on a theme such as “dates,” “people,” “symbolism.” Choosing a theme will help them process the facts. I thought about a class book or a simple flap book, but decided to make it more exciting by adapting the flip card from Michael Jacob’s Cards that Pop Up, Flip, and Slide — the flaps flip over when the bottom tab is pulled. Questions will be on one side of the flap and answers on the other, with a little room for decoration. I’m cutting up red and blue file folders from Staples, which have the grain going the right direction, very important for making the flaps flip.
Word Fun
February 28th, 2009 § 0
Part of the process of learning to read is finding small words within larger ones. Laura Vaccaro Seeger’s book One Boy was the inspiration for this project for first graders. They started with paper printed with their first or last names. Bold type or lettering shows through the paper when it’s folded, and children can be shown how to cut a hole in the page by themselves with scissors. The children made cut-outs to reveal the smaller words in their own names. Several of them enjoyed extending the project to other words.