Bookmaking With Kids

I get thank-you notes from time to time, usually with a few words, abundant and fanciful signatures and the occasional drawing.

In case you were wondering—and ignoring that fact that I pull my hair into pigtails when I teach and always wear blue jeans!—here’s what I look like in the eyes of one of my 1st-grade students:

The last stage of the long-running macaw project in Debra’s 1st grade classroom was the Really Important Part: reading and writing.

The students consulted lots of books, listened to Debra read aloud and watched a movie. Then they contributed to a giant list of newly acquired facts (below, left) and wrote drafts (like the one below, right), making sure to answer all the questions Debra had posed.

And finally they rewrote their corrected essays in folded booklets stapled into their Scenic Concertinas. Here’s one in its entirety:

The macaw’s habitat is the rain forest and the dry forest. Macaws eat clay, fruit and nuts. Macaws fly up to 35 miles per hour. They are endangered because people are smuggling them. This means they take them and sell them for money. Also they lose their home when the forest is cut down. Some humans are helping them by paying smugglers not to steal. Also, people take trips to see nature. This is eco-tourism. The macaws can use their toes to grip tree limbs and hang upside down. Some snakes and big cats can eat macaws.

For an up-close view, click each photo. And keep an eye out for some impressive vocabulary, including the bird’s Latin name, Ara Macao; ornithologist, deforestation, and even eco-tourism!

Read earlier, related posts here, here and here. And please click the link to see more pictures. more…

As the school year’s final book-arts project in my friend Debra’s classroom, we’re making phone books for the kids to fill in and use to stay in touch with classmates over the summer. They’re also roomy enough for kids to collect autographs or even glue in photos.

If you’d like to make these with your class, send me an email by May 27th. I’ll choose a winner at random and mail the supplies you’ll need.

The structure is a Staggered-Page Book, a name that tells you the crucial thing (Step 2, below) you need to know about making it.

1. Take five sheets of colored paper, each a different color. Jog them into a neat, horizontal stack (landscape orientation) and lay them on the desk.
2. Move the top four sheets to the left, exposing about a half-inch to three-quarters of an inch of the bottom sheet. Repeat until each sheet is offset from the one below it by about a half-inch to three-quarters of an inch.



3. Paper-clip the sheets in their staggered position.
4. Fold the pages in half as a group. Add a folded cover. (The one pictured here is 8.5 x 11 inches.)



5. Secure the cover and pages with your choice of binding. Consider sewing a pamphlet stitch, using a long-reach stapler or, as shown here, nipping partially circles with a two-hole punch and then doing a rubber band binding.

The Staggered-Page Book has many, many uses other than phone books. I hope this final photo will spark some ideas.

Right in time for Endangered Species Day yesterday at Lawton Alternative School, Debra’s 1st graders finished up a two-month project on macaws and put their colorful, fact-filled Scenic Concertina books on dis-
play. The kids even looked like macaws (!) for the day’s festivities … costumed in painted grocery bags they adapted as vests. Here are a few covers, completed books and vests. More details in the next few posts.

You can read about the earlier stages of this project here and here.

And please click the link for some great pix from Endangered Species Day. more…

I wish could receive a kid’s poem every day … the way I get a daily poem from The Writer’s Almanac in my email inbox. Young writers—even little kids just learning to write—often have a knack for a turn of phrase that’s unexpected, arresting, heartening.

Click the pictures at left and below to read some 1st grade poems “published” in the envelope-accordion books described in previous posts.

You’ve gotta love this description of outer space:

Stars are shooting
planets are grumbling
dust is everywhere

Or this take on spring flowers:

The flowers open like fireworks
They open fast
It goes like a firework
And it falls back down when spring is over.

You can read more about these books in previous posts, here and here. Please visit again to read some of the students’ poems.