Step Book

Hello everybody,

I am sorry I did not post anything last week but I moved house and then went on a short holiday straight after. I am back now and ready to write another post.

Today I will be showing you how you can make a step book with the children you teach.
A step book can be a fun way to get the children to write and draw a short story to share with their classmates.
As the teacher/parent you can decide whether the exercise should have a theme or whether you allow the children to make and write anything they like.

What do you need:

• 3 pieces of paper (all the same size) – the best paper to use is either A3 or A4.
• Hole punch and yarn or a stapler.
• Colouring pencils and pens.

Steps: 

I found this lovely website on which they explain very clearly what you ought to do. I will share the website and the pdf instruction file with you. They have also published a YouTube video on which you can see how to make the Step Book.
I just want to stress that this is not my website, it is someone else’s work which is worth checking out.

website : http://www.makingbooks.com/step.shtml
PDF file: stepbook
YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OascQW0cH_Q

Ideas: 

• To make the book more colourful you can use different coloured paper.
• Because the holiday is (almost) over you can ask the children to make a Step Book about their holiday adventures.
• The children can decorate the pages with pictures cut out of magazines, news papers, old books etc.
• You can also combine this exercise with one of my earlier exercises and have the children write down a top 5 of books at the beginning of the year. Every page of the step books (with three pages you will have 5 + a title page on which they can write their name) will represent one book and the pages can be numbered, decorated and written on. You can keep these in the classroom to give children reading ideas. It might also be fun to have them look back on their top five at the end of the school year and see if their top five has changed.

Travel Games

This week’s post is about games that can be played while you are travelling somewhere. During the summer you could find yourself stuck in your car for a long time, without any way of entertaining your kids.

I hope that this week’s post will help you inspire your children to play any of these travel games. I might have mentioned some of these games before, but they will be perfect to play on route.

1. Would you rather….?

This is a perfect game to play while you are travelling and you can easily give it a book theme. Have your children ask each other questions about characters from books they have read. All questions will begin with ‘Would you rather….?’ and the aim of the game is to give two options to choose from. The child answering the question will have to explain why.

For example: Would you rather be Ron or Hermoine?
Would you rather read books or watch movies?

Of course the topic of the questions can also vary to more general questions, questions about movies etc.

A variety on this game is to ask more open questions like: Would you have liked the visit Willy Wonka’s factory?
Or you could mix the two types of questions.

2. Story-telling

This game can be verbal or written down. It is a creative game in which one player starts a story with one sentence and the other players add to the story with their sentences. The plot of the story can change with every turn and you need to work together to make the story evolve.

3. Alphabet game

In this game you go through the alphabet and each letter represents a character or book. So for example if you are player 1 your letter is A and you need to think of a character or book starting with A. You could put a time limit on it to make it more competitive.
You can also play a variety on this game in which one player starts by naming a character and the next player has to think of another character that starts with the last letter of player 1’s character. For example: player 1 says Alice and then player 2 can say Eragon, etc.

4. Who is the neighbour?

One thing I always like when I go somewhere is to watch people. In the car the players could look at people, animals or places on their way and make up imaginary stories about them. They could imagine where they are going, where they are from and what they are thinking. It does not have to be the truth, let their imagination go wild.

5. Number plate story

Another way of storytelling could be by looking at the letters in the number plates of passing cars. Tell stories in which the first letter in the number plate is the start of the main character’s name, the second is the start of the name of the place and the third could be the start of an animal that is in the story. The children can think of their own rules for what the letters should represent.

6. Hot seat/ who is it?

I have talked about this game before, but it is brilliant to play while you are on your way. One of the players takes a character of a book in mind and the other player will have to ask questions to find out who they have in mind. The questions can only be answered with ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

Fairy Mail

This week’s post has a fairy theme. I thought it would be fun to make a door into a different world, one that can make your children or the children you teach wonder about what could be behind the little door.

As well as making the little door you can craft a mini letter and envelope with a message for whatever the child imagines can be found behind the door.

What do you need for the door?

• Popsicle sticks
• Card board paper
• Paint in any desired colour
• Glue that glues wood, beads and other decorations
• Beads, fake flowers, things found in nature, etc. to decorate the little door

Steps to make the door:

Instead of taking you through every step I will show you a picture I found on the internet and give some tips or suggestions. (http://pennywiseblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/a-scandinavian-christmas.html)

Tips:
* It might be a nice idea to use a nice bead for the door knob.
* A welcome sign could be nice or maybe some moss on the top or bottom of the door.
* The child does not have to paint the door in one colour, they can also decide to make a rainbow door for example.
* When the door is ready you can place it anywhere in the house, the garden or the school and the children can start imagining what could be behind it. Maybe they can even write a little story about the door and the world hidden behind it.

What do you need for the letter and envelope?

• Paper (I used small post it notes)
• Pencil (with sharp point) or fine pen.
• Coloured pencils or other coloured paper to decorate with stamp on the front and seal on the back.
• Some glue/ pritt stick

Steps to make the envelope:

I drew my envelope first so I would know the right sizes and where to fold. I used a pink post it note because that was what was available but you can use any kind of paper as long as it is easy to fold.

On the picture you can see the measurements I used. This is just an example, it does not have to be exactly the same.

My envelope is 8 cm is length and 5 cm in width. I will exaplain what the numbers mean next.

1. These are the two folding strips. Mine are 3 cm long and 1 cm wide. I drew them 6 cm from the bottom (nr. two). They are numbered as one because they are the first part you need to fold in when you cut it out. You simply fold them inwards on the line.
2. This is the second part you are going to fold. It will fit nicely on top of the two numbers ones. You put glue on the other side of the ones to secure this part on top. You can already see it is an envelope after you have done this. My number two is 3cm by 3cm.
3. You fold number three once you have put the letter inside. You can then either glue it shut onto number two or you can make a little seal to glue on top. I cut the corners of my number three to make it look more like a real envelope.

After I cut out and folded my envelope I used a bit of left over paper to write a tiny note. Let the children be creative and allow them to write to whoever they think could be behind the door.

Enjoy this magical craft and writing session!