Journals and bookmarks

Our first Craft Kitchen session went really great. All of the children did simple bookbinding, and added a pocket in the back of the book to hold the bookmarks they made and a drawing tool. For inspiration today we read Shel Silverstein poems to the children from "Where the Sidewalk Ends". A favorite book from my youth that I read all the time. We talked to the children about ways to use their journals from writing poetry, drawing pictures, collaging, to even using as a diary. They were able to personalize their own journal cover with foam stickers, magazine cutouts, coloring, markers, and buttons. We encouraged them to use their journals as a creative outlet, and talked about what an "entry" is in a journal. I showed them a couple examples in my book so they could see the possibilities. Then at the end of the day we played a word game Hangman which they seemed to enjoy by letting them choose the words that the other children would have to guess. Overall, we had a great first session and we are looking forward to the rest of the classes being energetic and craftastic!

Here are the examples that I did to show the class. These gave them some ideas of how to make the front of their book interesting and personalize it.

The picture above is of two students journals and the back pockets.

The same students front of their journals. I believe they had a fondness for foam stickers.

Here a couple more students with their lovely journals above and below. What great modeling they are doing of the beautiful works. We encouraged them to layer images, which was difficult for some, and exciting for others.