Friday, March 4, 2011

"Sharks Are Cool" -Easy Homemade Book

W. made his first "real" book. We turned an ordinary 'ole book report into some first class fun! It was easy, and it incorporated reading, science, and writing skills along with Kindergarten drawing, coloring, cutting, and pasting.

First, we picked out an old board book (it was originally from the dollar store). Just about any board book will do. I used my Cricut paper cutter to trim  a 12 x 12 inch piece of cardstock (scrapbook) paper to 6" - it fit our little book for the front cover - side- and back. Be careful to leave enough room around the spine.


I used Elmers "Craft Bond" spray adhesive to adhere the cardstock to the front and back cover. It was also used to cover each of the inside pages of the book.







I cut smaller squares of thinner colored scrapbook paper to cover the inside pages. If they are too thick the book won't lay flat when closed.

We used a Word program and a larger font for easy reading to write the story. My son and I read the book together, "All About Sharks". Then,  I typed while he dictated what he wanted to say about his subject title- "Sharks Are Cool".

We printed and cut the 2 page story into individual small size pages and he used a glue stick to afix them to each of the pages on the right side of the board book.  He also drew, colored, and cut out a shark for the front cover. I added a strip of coordinating scrapbook paper to each page to dress it up just a bit.

The last thing we did was take pictures with my digital camera of the different parts of sharks  (like dorsal fins and big teeth) from other books. We printed out the pics in a size that fit his book and he glued them to each of the appropriate pages on the right to correspond with his story.

These are his words, in his book, on one of his favorite topics. He did the art work, and he is very very proud. I am happy because there was a lot of school packed into this little project, and I won't have a hard time getting him to work on his reading (at least for a few days)!

Ready2Read   Link-Up Your "Ready2Read"  learning projects!


These are a couple of products you might like to check out. Both of them are on my little "wish list"! Everything I've read about the "Cinch" book binding machine sounds great. It is supposed to be very simple to use compared to others and works with laminate as well as up to 20 pages at a time of regualar paper.

Jeanne Stein's book "Re-bound" is all about repurposing and recycling old materials to create new- one of a kind books. I think it sounds like great fun!

8 comments:

Angela Toucan said...

fantastic book - welldone

Jill said...

Wonderful job! I love it. You and your son have much to be proud of.

Young Adventures... said...

What a fun idea! Way to make his own!!

Unknown said...

What a great idea. Good job!!

Holly G said...

Fantastic project!! Activities like this are really a joy of homeschooling. It would be pretty difficult to try to manage 26 kindergartners in a class all making this. Don't get me wrong, we do plenty of book-writing projects similar to this, but the book you guys made is especially nice!

Kristi said...

I am going to have to do this! My 7 yr. old LOVES making books! This would be so fun! Hope that you've had a great weekend!

Tonya said...

Wow, now that's a project! My middle schooler just finished making an "altered book" for school - taking a used book and making it into a work of art, using the book the class was reading to illustrate how it related to themselves and the world. You've done just this with your project, at a kindergarten level. Good job!

Tonya said...

I thought I left a comment but don't see it, so forgive me if I'm repeating myself :)

My middle schooler just finished an "altered book" project. He repurposed a book into an art creation as part of a book report for a novel they read in school. Your son's shark book reminds me of a kindergartener's version of this. Good job, homeschooling mom!