Homemade Sketchbooks

We hit the ground running in art this year! Most other art teachers would call me crazy for painting the second week of school, especially with my brand new 1st graders, but we did it! (and the kids did a fabulous job, most classes cleaned up in under 5 minutes)

This year, we are making our own sketchbooks. This project is AWESOME, because it allows us to use the amount of paper we want, it gives us individualized sketchbook covers, cuts cost where I bought composition notebooks last year, and the kids get to create in the process. WIN, WIN,WIN, WIN!

The second week of school, we painted the covers using just a 18x12 sheet of colored construction paper, paint, and big brushes (I have also seen these done with old file folders, which might be more durable, I just don't have 700 at hand).

 With the younger kids, I limited the color palette to mostly cool colors (blue, green, pthalo green, lime green, yellow, and white) so that they could mix and experiment without it turning brown. They turned out really lovely!

This week, we are stuffing them with 20 sheets of white paper, stapling the spines with a heavy duty stapler (a normal stapler will staple 10 sheets of paper just fine, but not 20), and reinforcing the spine with strips of colorful, patterned duck tape. (I had a lot of fun picking these out for the kids!)  I am also cutting a 3 inch strip and putting it in the center of their sketchbook cover so the kids can write their name and teacher code with sharpie. 

*While they waited to be called back to my table to put their sketchbook together, they created a self portrait for the first page of their sketchbook. 

These are super fun, super simple, low cost, and I can't wait to use them this year!