Bookmaking Across Subjects: Making Learning Last Longer (Transcript)

Susan: Making books is a very valuable tool to help children to really gain a good understanding of what any subject matter might be about. They’re invested in it, and they really become experts on in the content of the books.

John: The accordion fold does a zig-zagging paper fold.

John: The bookmaking came about through an idea of starting sketch books. And then the excitement over bookmaking culminated into teachers saying, “Well, you know, it’d be nice if we could get the curriculum into these books, too.”

Susan: Each child will be producing an actual book that they will get to keep and the teachers in the grade level chose what the topic would be, and what style of book.

John: After we make the books here in the art room, they take them back to the classroom to integrate the content based on whatever their unit is that they’re currently studying.

Susan: I used to teach idioms by reading books to children that had idioms in them, and worksheet-type activities. The bookmaking took it to a whole new level, where the kids really took ownership.

Katie: We’re doing like idiom pop-up books. It’s kind of like an expression, like you don’t mean it literally.

Isaiah: “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket,” means “Don’t put all your resources in one possibility.”

Ava: “Feeling under the weather,” means you’re feeling sick or ill.

Gwennie: It’s just really fun to draw the idioms, because you don’t get to draw things like that every day.

Victor: You can use your imagination really, like right now, I’m doing “Elvis left the building,” I think. It means like, “The show is over,” and stuff.

Robby: “Barking up the wrong tree,” you think you’re doing something right, but you’re not.

Gwennie: “To steal someone’s thunder” means to take credit for something someone else did.

Susan: They’re not only learning about the idioms in their own pop-up books, they’re learning about the meanings of the idioms that their classmates are putting into their books as well. So it’s a great process of discovery, and creating.

John: They’ve spent this time putting a lot of effort into the quality of their work, how they’re using materials, thinking with their hands. So these books are really special to them. Now this knowledge that they’re learning has a really magical place to go.

Gretchen: For the fifth grader, bookmaking project is focusing on geography, and so we came up with the idea to do an accordion book with pockets so that we could house doodle maps, which we thought were really cool in terms of being able to share information, but also incorporate in drawing.

Gretchen: Who remembers one of the themes? Mia?

Mia: Place, it’s like how you recognize a certain area. You might recognize Keene as cold, but beautiful leaves in the autumn.

Gretchen: So our next step is to think about these five themes and how they’re represented in the different regions of the United States.

Gretchen: They definitely do a lot of research, and then they’re deciding how they incorporate that information in and represent it.

Kyah: When we draw it out, we have to look up what movement and region, and all that means. And then we have to draw a picture relating to the three sentences we wrote for the definition. I didn’t really know the States very well, and then once we started doing this, I started knowing crops, and the climate, and what animals are there. I learned a lot more.

Student: This is really coming together!

Gretchen: Our goal is for them to really get to know the country that they live in. So instead of me saying, “Oh, here’s a map of the 50 States, and we’ll study it, and we’ll take a test about it,” this is a lot more hands-on, and the learning just seems more real for them.

Calvin: I’m a really good drawer, so I wouldn’t really like doing a report.

Maverick: I used to feel like geography was stupid, dumb, horrible.

Kyah: This is Gary.

Maverick: But now I actually think it’s really cool.

John: If we can actually create something that’s relevant to us, we take that knowledge deeper into us. I think it just helps us to learn.

Susan: Exactly. Each classroom has a variety of learners, and students who need the hands-on experience, and those who tend to be more creative, have really benefited from the bookmaking process.

John: Those materials that you’re manipulating to create something can have worth outside of just a pretty picture. It has staying power.

Schools That Work

Symonds Elementary School