I was collaborating with my friend Kim last year about some projects we could present at our "Writing and the Visual Arts" workshop at ECEC. We needed some good non fiction ideas and this file folder book fit the bill. I first came across file folder journals in an article in Jan/Feb 2011 Cloth, Paper, Scissors by Heidi Skovski and Karin Winter. It perked my interest and I could envision great applications in the classroom. This is the Owl example we presented at ECEC. This is the Polar Bear version Grade 3 is currently working on. Instead of writing a report the kids have made these books and inside we have tags, pockets, index cards, bookmarks, etc, etc. on which they have put facts, vocabulary, statistics, poems, and paragraphs. It is a great way to get the students excited about compiling a research file. MATERIALS REQUIRED: - letter file folders - glue stick - tacky glue - paint, we used tempera - cardstock and manila tag cut into tags, bookmarks, inchies - pictures of polar bears - googly eyes, craft foam, fun fur - stamps, embellishments - safety pin - clothespin - paper scraps - ribbon PROCEDURE: Now I pre-folded the books for the Grade 3's ahead of time. With higher grades they could start at the beginning. Open folder and refold the center matching up the tabs. File folders are folded off centre. Open up the folder. Fold up the bottom 7cm or 2.75 ". The tabs should line up. In bookbinding we talk about mountain folds and valley folds. Make the center fold a mountain. Now fold each side in half, valley fold towards that center fold. Don't worry about the tabs here, just the main part of the folder. If you stand it up it should look like this. The file folder book is accordion folded. Now you need to secure that pocket section. Open up the pocket fold. Put some glue on the 3 folds at the bottom. Click on this picture to see larger. Now I'm a sewer so I sewed the 2 ends but all you need is some tacky glue. The ends take a bit more abuse than the inner pockets so you want them quite secure. Your file folder book is now ready to go. Before I started working with the students I created a page with photos and titles that they would use. I photocopied one for each child. If we had more time I would have had them find their own pictures. I also printed out some titles for their books in a variety of fonts. Again because we did not get a prior computer class ahead of time I had to provide this for them. We decided on our color scheme and then I had the kids paint the inner pockets and pages with tempera paint. When this was dry I had them paint the back. (2 colors, 1/2 a folder each). Paint a clothespin at this time as well. For the front cover we cut some scraps of paper and glued them on for the ground. I then had them trace around a shape for the front of the bear out of newspaper. They each had a fun fur circle for the head. They then glued on 2 googly eyes and punched a nose out of craft foam with a hole punch. I had the supplies set out at different stations around the classroom. They painted their titles with watery tempera puck. They let it dry (5 minutes of flapping) and then cut the words out and glued on their title. They then glued on a few snowflake embellishments. For the inchie the chose a colored square. Made a thumbprint with white paint. When it has dried add black sharpie and white gel pen to make a polar bear. Clip to the front of your book with the clothespin. The clothespin can clip the file folder book closed when it's not on display. Before class I cut lots of tags, bookmarks and index type cards. I had the kids punch a hole at the top of all of them. Some are to hang from the safety pin and some get tied with ribbon and put in the pocket. I went around and pined each safety pin in place for the kids. If you are worried about the sharp pin point you can cut it off. The kids will spend tomorrow's LA class filling out all their info on these tags. Add embellishments, stamps, wheels, little clotheslines, whatever you have on hand to fill up that folder. The more variety the better. Finally on the back cover we stenciled on a polar bear using the same method from this post. The kids spent a busy afternoon preparing their books. There was lots of excitement and energy in the room. Here is the inside of the owl one. Here is the back. I'm sure you are thinking about all the possibilities with this project. See you soon.