DIY: Build a Blank Book for a Budding Writer

Once kids understand that books are objects that contain words and/or images organized onto pages, and that pages are generally looked at in a particular order (reading and repetition reinforce these concepts–if you’re interested in ideas, here’s my latest list of good books for good kids), it can be fun to empower them by giving them a blank book all their own to write and illustrate. And when you do this, it’s nice to not necessarily have to buy a commercially-made blank book, but to make your own out of scraps around your house, also teaching your children how books are created and demonstrating how they, too, can create what they need.

You will need: one piece of 8.5″x11″ cardstock (here’s an example), new or recycled from a cereal box, old book, sturdy magazine cover, etc.; 5 pieces of 8.5″x11″ typing paper, new or scrap; needle and thread or sewing machine with a sturdy sharp needle installed

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1. Fold your cardstock in half–this will be your book’s cover. You may use decorative scissors to cut a fancy edge on it, if you wish.

2. Fold your five pieces of typing paper in half and nest them inside your cardstock cover.

3. Sew straight up the fold line from end to end, sewing through all the pages and the cardstock. Either use a backstitch or running stitch if sewing by hand, or use a loose tension and a wide stitch on your sewing machine–I generally save old sewing machine needles just for this project.

4. Trim your thread, trim any typing paper pages that might stick out past the cover, and hand your new blank book off to someone special.

To make this an even more eco-friendly project, recycle all your paper materials from other sources. Small children likely won’t care if they’re scribbling on junk mail or newspaper pages, and perhaps neither will you, if you’re making a book just for lists or ideas or quick notes to yourself. Older children can be intrigued by the idea of ferreting out old paper to repurpose into books, and might particularly enjoy making pages out of graph paper, coloring pages, or wrapping paper.

So that’s how I encourage my budding writers–how do you encourage yours?

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