Book of Thanks

I was really happy with the results of our Thanksgiving calendar last year.  However, this year we'll be living in three or more different locations during the month of November.  Since our hotel rooms are not conducive to hanging butcher paper on the wall, I needed an alternative.  

At some point in elementary school our teacher taught us to make homemade books.  I loved it at the time. We made Thanksgiving books this year,  and I'm pretty happy with my results now too.

Materials:  Eight pieces of fall colored construction paper.  This gives us 30 usuable pages including the inside covers.  Scissors, a pencil and ruler.   Optional:  Boxing tape.

Step 1:  Fold each peice of paper in half "hamburger style."

Step 2: On the folded crease, make a mark two inches from each edge

Step 3: In the cover sheet, cut a slit from one of the two inch marks to the other.  For those of you who are cutting challenged like me, cut a tiny slit perpendicular to the crease at one mark, then insert your scissors into the tiny slit to cut down the length of the crease to the other mark.

Step 4:  For all the other pages cut a slit from each edge into the 2 inch mark.

Step 5:  Roll the pages into a coil, and insert through the slit in the cover.  Hint:  If the sheet in the middle of the coil is the same as the cover, then the front and back of your book will have the same color cover.

 Step 6:  Fold the book in half.  If you like, add a strip of packing tape the binding to add some durability.

All ready for my little artist!  This was simple to do, and the page size is big enough for little hands to make a recognizable drawing.

Using a stencil to draw in the page numbers gave an added aspect of ownership, number review, and fine motor skills.

So far we've given thanks for McDonald's toys and our eyes.  I'm looking forward to what they decide to draw next!