Make a Little Folded Christmas Book

These “tiny books” are a lovely little gift for a young child, or fun to make with a child. You can make the text suit your child, and use clipart pictures or stickers, draw your own or let your child illustrate the book. Very simple text is best, so these books are great “first readers”, too.

If you do your book on a computer, you can print or photocopy multiple copies to give away (great for teachers/carers of littlies).

I have made several of these tiny books which I share with my reading students and on my website, www.ePuzzlEd.net. It took me ages to work out how to do them on the computer, with the text going opposite ways, but I’ve finally worked out the “sideways” technique, as presented here.

Planning.

First, you need to work out a simple 6- or 7-page “story” (you can leave the last page blank, as a back cover, or use it for your story).
To get your ideas, you could start with :
1. The pictures- look at the clipart available (see Notes for some good, free Christmas clipart sites or do a search for some); or you could think about the things you can draw, if you are going to do your own illustrations. You could also use stamps, stickers or simple collage for the pictures.
2. A simple story line, nursery rhyme, poem or song that would be good for you or your child to illustrate.
3. A little story that your child has made up. (It may need to be simplified for the book).

You may want to do a simple “pictures with labels” type of book.

If you are making up a story, keep the sentences very short and simple. Repetitive structure is very good for little kids (especially for beginning readers). Try to add a little “twist” on the last page, to add interest and to define the end of the story.

This Instructable is for a Christmas book, but of course you can make up a little book about anything that will fit in 6-7 pages. You could use clear photos of family and/or pets. To get some ideas, you may like to look at my website: http://www.epuzzled.net/freeminibookstoprint.htm.

I have included instructions in this Instructable for a book made on the computer using Microsoft Word, with or without text and/or clipart. Just use the steps you need.

If you don’t want to make your book on the computer using Word, you can print off a blank book layout that I have made, and add your own text and pictures. The blank book is at the website link above.

You can also use the layout to make a book by hand: just rule an A4 page into 8 sections as in the layout (you don’t need the borders – your pages will just be a little bigger as they won’t need the edges trimmed off). Follow the assembly instructions to make the book, then write and/or draw in it as you like.
 

Step 1 Draw the Layout

If you don’t want to do this as Word document, you can draw lines on a page by hand- just rule an A4 page into 8 sections as in the layout. You don’t need the borders.

To make a book using MS Word:

Fig.1. Open a Word document. Pull back the margins to about 1/4inch.

Fig.2. Draw a large table to fill the page, just leaving the narrow margins. (Then pull the bottom margin right down to get rid of the “next” page).

Fig.3. Draw one line down middle and three lines across the table.

Fig.4. Select Table Tools- Layout- distribute columns, rows evenly.

The next steps are optional- they just help with assembling the book, showing where to fold or cut.

Fig.5. Select Table Tools- Design- dotted lines; change your inside lines to dotted.
 
Fig.6. Change the middle 2 sections of middle line to dashed style (to show the cutting line).

Fig.7. Your layout should now look like this.
 

Comments

[Ghost Wolf]

Very easy project to make and very fun for little kids

[Puzzledd]

Thanks! My Grade 1 children love them :)