"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)!

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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!