Overview

Here’s the first in a series of DIY book making ideas intended to help parents and early learning settings support children in creating their own books.

Supplies

Here’s what you’ll need:

• Paper
• Hole Punch
• Rubber Bands
• Sticks, Wooden Dowels, Pencils, or Craft Sticks

Process

There are three simple steps to make these nifty books:

Fold

Start by folding a couple sheets of paper in half and make a nice crease.

Punch

Next, punch a couple holes along the fold. I’m using an old-timey punch that must weigh 5 pounds, but a tiny hand held hole punch will work just fine.

Bind

Finally, slip a rubber band through the holes and secure it with a stick. There’s no real non-awkward way to do this as you can tell from the gif below, but with a bit of practice it gets pretty easy.

Variations

You can avoid wrestling with a rubber band with a simple piece of string:

You can also avoid the folding and simply punch holes along the edge of full sheets of paper:

Uses

Here are a couple ideas for using these books:

• Make blank books available around the play setting for kids to use as needed in their play.
• Let kids dictate their stories to you and then draw illustrations for their books.
• Let kids work together to create collaborative books.
• Let kids create their own versions of stories or books they enjoy.
• Create a book making station. With a bit of direct instruction, an interested child can put their own books together.
• Create picture books featuring children’s drawings, images you’ve printed, or photos cut from magazines or catalogs.
• You can also use this method to turn collections of children’s paper-based art work into books–portfolios of their creations.

Conclusion

This is a simple way to put books in the hands of children and spark their creative instincts. I’d love to see what you create if you give this idea a try. You can post photos in the comments section below.

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