Bookmarks

In our class, Fridays and basically arts and crafts day, and this Friday we teacher had no planning time so we were looking for crafty ideas that may take the students a while to do. We came across a YouTube video by Red Ted Art where she made these simplistic and creative origami bookmarks. They were simple but would need to be guided and presented fine motor challenges; perfect for our class as many of them need work on their fine motor skills. Red Ted Art had many videos with different ideas of how to decorate these bookmarks to look like many different animals. We also hopped that making these bookmarks would make the students more excited to find a book to use them with and encourage them to read more.

Here is the video:

We made a few before class for examples then arranged the students so each could see me. I led the students through each of the steps, waiting until each student had completed each before moving on. When they were done, the students were able to decorate their bookmarks and make more. At this point, they all decorated at different speeds, so when they wanted to make another, they either sat with me and I led them through it again, or they attempted to do it from memory.

To decorate the bookmarks, the students used plastic coins to trace circles for eyes, markers to draw accents and cut jagged paper to glue teeth to the inside of the front of the bookmark. The students also cut other things about of colourful paper as other decorations such as stripes or polka dots.

I was surprised at how well they were able to follow the directions and how much fun they had making their bookmarks. Most students made between 2-5 bookmarks each, making different monsters and animals; some students even decided to make them in polar bears, like our WWF pet.

Unfortunately, I did not get many pictures of the students while making, or even of the final results, but take a look at the few I did remember to take:

One student set us a picture putting her bookmarks to use:

Here is the lesson plan for this activity:

#Bookmarks #Monster #Creative #Art #Craft #Animals