How to Make an Acrostic Book

In the fall at ECEC I presented this acrostic book idea.  I've been getting requests for the "how to" so here we go.

Now Grade 1 did these BEAR books in November and just recently

Grade 3 made these ARCTIC books.













MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- posterboard or manila tag
- die cut machine, circut, or just your trusty scissors
- colored paper
- stapler, jump rings, string, or whatever you want as the binding material
- glue
- paint, text, poems, schoolwork to fill in the pages

PROCEDURE:

Decide on a word for your book.  This ARCTIC book, 6 letters is about as long as I would go.

I pre cut the letters on the circut machine.  I have also used the manual die cut at the school, and with older grades had them cut the letters themselves using stencils or the old "create a letter from a rectangle" method.  For those of you who don't have access to a diecut machine check out your local scrapbooking store.  Often they will allow you to use their die cutting equipment for a small charge.

Once you have your letters, I'm using 4 inch, cut some strips of posterboard, manila tag, or heavy paper.  I cut the strips 4 inches wide and used the actual width of the original paper as my length.

Place the letters down on one full strip and mark it to determine the length that each page should be.

Cut your pages.

For Grade 3 I pre stapled, you could also work on them loose and bind them at the end.

The students were given the letters one at a time and then asked to glue them on the end of the pages.

We used tacky glue as the glue sticks just don't seem to be sticky anymore. (Don't get me started.....)

So it should look something like this now.

It's a good idea to mark in pencil where each page lies on the next page.  This will help you keep your content from going to far and peeking out.

Now you can fill in those pages.  Grade 3 wrote a report on the "ARCTIC" using the letter featured for each page. For example for A, A Polar Bear crosses the tundra, An igloo is a house made of ice and snow.

Grade 1 wrote words applicable to BEAR on each page, like B is brown, black, big, bushy etc.

My sample book had paintings (of course) and then words based on the letters.

A: awesome
R: rugged
C: cold
T: tundra
I: icy
C: climate

You get the idea.

Why not give it a try.

Here is some recent student work to show you.  Here are a few file folder books.

and the picture stretching from grade 3.  Great job everyone.   I hope everyone has a good Teacher's Convention and enjoys the long weekend.

See you soon.

How to make File Folder Books

I was collaborating with my friend Kim last year about some projects we could present at our "Writing and the Visual Arts" workshop at ECEC.

We needed some good non fiction ideas and this file folder book fit the bill.


I first came across file folder journals in an article in Jan/Feb 2011 Cloth, Paper, Scissors by Heidi Skovski and Karin Winter.  It perked my interest and I could envision great applications in the classroom.

This is the Owl example we presented at ECEC.

This is the Polar Bear version Grade 3 is currently working on.

Instead of writing a report the kids have made these books and inside we have tags, pockets, index cards, bookmarks, etc, etc. on which they have put facts, vocabulary, statistics, poems, and paragraphs.



It is a great way to get the students excited about compiling a research file.

















MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- letter file folders
- glue stick
- tacky glue
- paint, we used tempera
- cardstock and manila tag cut into tags, bookmarks, inchies
- pictures of polar bears
- googly eyes, craft foam, fun fur
- stamps, embellishments
- safety pin
- clothespin
- paper scraps
- ribbon


PROCEDURE:

Now I pre-folded the books for the Grade 3's ahead of time.  With higher grades they could start at the beginning.


Open folder and refold the center matching up the tabs.  File folders are folded off centre.

Open up the folder.  Fold up the bottom 7cm or 2.75 ".  The tabs should line up.

In bookbinding we talk about mountain folds and valley folds.  Make the center fold a mountain.

Now fold each side in half, valley fold towards that center fold.  Don't worry about the tabs here, just the main part of the folder.

If you stand it up it should look like this.  The file folder book is accordion folded.

 Now you need to secure that pocket section.  Open up the pocket fold.  Put some glue on the 3 folds at the bottom.   Click on this picture to see larger.

Now I'm a sewer so I sewed the 2 ends but all you need is some tacky glue.  The ends take a bit more abuse than the inner pockets so you want them quite secure.






Your file folder book is now ready to go.  Before I started working with the students I created a page with photos and titles that they would use.  I photocopied one for each child.  If we had more time I would have had them find their own pictures.

I also printed out some titles for their books in a variety of fonts.  Again because we did not get a prior computer class ahead of time I had to provide this for them.

We decided on our color scheme and then I had the kids paint the inner pockets and pages with tempera paint.  When this was dry I had them paint the back. (2 colors, 1/2 a folder each).

Paint a clothespin at this time as well.

For the front cover we cut some scraps of paper and glued them on for the ground.  I then had them trace around a shape for the front of the bear out of newspaper.

They each had a fun fur circle for the head.

They then glued on 2 googly eyes and punched a nose out of craft foam with a hole punch.  I had the supplies set out at different stations around the classroom.

They painted their titles with watery tempera puck.

They let it dry (5 minutes of flapping) and then cut the words out and glued on their title.  They then glued on a few snowflake embellishments.

For the inchie the chose a colored square.  Made a thumbprint with white paint.

When it has dried add black sharpie and white gel pen to make a polar bear.

Clip to the front of your book with the clothespin.  The clothespin can clip the file folder book closed when it's not on display.

Before class I cut lots of tags, bookmarks and index type cards.

I had the kids punch a hole at the top of all of them.  Some are to hang from the safety pin and some get tied with ribbon and put in the pocket.  I went around and pined each safety pin in place for the kids.  If you are worried about the sharp pin point you can cut it off.

The kids will spend tomorrow's LA class filling out all their info on these tags.  Add embellishments, stamps, wheels, little clotheslines, whatever you have on hand to fill up that folder.  The more variety the better.

Finally on the back cover we stenciled on a polar bear using the same method from this post.

The kids spent a busy afternoon preparing their books.  There was lots of excitement and energy in the room.

Here is the inside of the owl one.

Here is the back.

I'm sure you are thinking about all the possibilities with this project.   See you soon.