binding it all together

This week we worked on binding all of the pages of our Good Books from this school year together into one large book. Enki Education recommends a version of binding that involves unhinging the wire that binds the drawing pads we use as Good Books, then sewing the books together through the original binding holes. I've been reading through the instructions on and off all year, and decided I needed to come up with a simpler/quicker version of pulling our year's work together in order for my kids to feel like successful participants in the process, yet have a sturdy enough product for them to flip through as often as they'd like. So here's what I finally came up with:

First (in the first photo), the kids removed the pages from their Good Books that they wanted to use in their final year-end book, tearing them along the perforations rather than unraveling the wire binding. (They chose to use pretty much everything we did.)

Then they punched holes in the pages with a 3-hole punch. To make the end product a bit sturdier, we punched 5 holes (yes, we had to be a little clever to get everything to line up correctly) rather than 3. I had originally planned on 6 holes, but couldn't get a consistent result with the punch, so settled on 5.

They then bound all the pages together with loose clip rings.

The rings proved to be a little difficult to work with, but despite all the opening and closing required, the kids worked their way through it. It was really great proprioceptive and tactile work for them, so there was an added bonus I hadn't planned on!

There were some pages the kids wanted to include that weren't in our Good Books -- we simply glued them onto a Good Book page and included it in the same way. They of course wanted to include their vowel paintings, and those didn't glue as well to the Good Book pages, so we just punched holes in the paintings directly (except for the "I" star, which we did manage to glue to a page).

Then we punched holes in heavy cardboard (we used the back cover from the Good Book drawing tablets) to use as good, stiff front and back covers for their books. The kids sifted through their paintings from the year and each selected one to use as a title page for their books. The rest of the paintings went into an artist's portfolio for each child.

Here the kids are working on creating their title pages. Zoo Boy chose the title, which both boys agreed on, "My Big Science, Math and L.A. Book". I requested they include 2008-09. This was the most writing Zoo Boy has done to date, I think letting him choose the title helped him feel confident in his ability to write it all down even though it took him awhile.

The finished books. They really look great! The kids had a blast sorting through all of their work from the year, seeing how far their drawing and writing skills have come, remembering the stories we told and the projects we did, and deciding which order they wanted things to go in their final book. It took us all week, working on it about an hour a day, but they stuck with it, never lost interest, and are very enthusiastic about the finished product -- they can't wait to show it off to family and friends.

We're done!! Whoo hoo!!!!! All we've got left for this year is a small Solstice Celebration on Saturday evening, and a week full of fun field trips with other homeschoolers planned for next week. (We're calling it our End Of Year Celebration Week.) And then it's on to summer recreation and relaxation! Ahhhhh..... It's been a WONDERFUL year, but I am ready for Summer Break!