River timeline books

 On Wednesday we completed the river timeline books by binding them. Cindy had the kids prepared with summaries of their notes for each time period written out onto sticker labels to be inserted into the individual pages. I brought along the chipboard for sturdy covers as well as paper maps of the Delaware Valley region cut down to cover the chipboard. It was mostly a follow-the-directions lesson as we moved step by step through how to cover the boards and bind the book. Each child received 2 boards and 2 map pieces. They selected which side of the map the wanted to be showing, then glued it onto the board, folding over the corners and edges and gluing them down, like wrapping a package. Then we decided which side should be the front cover and which the back, and glued their accordion paper first to the back side, then the front side, careful to center it and line up the 2 covers.

Once the covers were complete and the book bound, the students doublechecked that their summary labels and everything was well glued down. Cindy and I roamed the room helping students as needed complete the binding.

When all binding was complete, we brainstormed some possible titles for the books. The students came up with: "The Olden Times", "Life of a River", "A River Changes", "River Timeline". We wrote each suggestion on the board and made not that book titles are always capitalized. Then I asked students to tell what their favorite time period was and why. I had also brought in photocopies of maps of Philadelphia from each of the time periods we had covered in the book for the students to select one image representing their favorite tie period to collage onto the front of their book with their title. At the end of class I offered the simile "A book is like a body" to see if anyone could figure out why (head, spine, and foot are parts of books, and covers/content are like outside/inside of a person).

 It's very satisfying to turn something you've drawn and written into a real book. The students were quite proud of how these turned out.