Making Handmade Books
June 4, 2008 by Karen Weideman
Filed under Parenting
As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been sorting through a lot of boxes from my basement. This week I came across a book that I made with my first grade students. What memories! 
The week we made this book, we had been learning about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. The students took what they had learned and decided they wanted to write about Abraham Lincoln. Each student helped to illustrate the book.
You can do this activity with your child at home or with your students at school. Here are some suggestions for topics:
- write about something they’ve learned (such as the story shown in the picture)
- write a new ending for their favorite book
- retell their week on vacation
- pick a random topic
- summarize their favorite story
- make up a story about their favorite tv character
The topics are endless and story writing serves as a great way to cultivate creativity. To bind your books, all you need is a hole puncher and some yarn. For special books or books that will get used a lot, you may want to consider laminating the pages. You can also take the books to an office supply store and they can bind them for you.
Do you have any tips for making your own books?
image by Karen
What a fun idea, Karen. I love to make books with children when I work with them in schools. Try using small scrapbooks, often found in the dollar type stores, for the books. Those are fun, too.
I taught a workshop on blogging at the local library this afternoon, Karen. I pulled up One Book Two Book as an example of blogging, and they enjoyed this post and the Wordless Wednesday.
The scrapbooks are a good idea. I’m glad they enjoyed the articles.
Sounds like you’ve been busy.