Boredom Fighting Art Project: Create a Mini-Book

Looking for more ideas to keep boredom from creeping into your spring break vacation? We've been creating mini-books for coloring pictures in, collaging in and writing in. They're easy to create, but still require parental supervision when you children are involved.

Here's what you'll need to complete this project:
1: a piece of paper
2: a pair of scissors
3: a glue stick
4: strips of paper
5: a heavy stack of books

Here's some basic instruction:
1: ask your child to pick out their favorite color construction paper or use plain white drawing paper
2: fold the paper in half
3: cut your paper along the fold
4: fold those papers in half
5: cut along those folds
6: fold those papers in half
7: cut along those folds
8: fold all of those papers together, scoring the edges with the edge of your scissors
9: stack all the folded papers on top of each other (so they look like single page signatures piled on top of each other)
10: use a glue stick to glue the back of one "signature" to the front of the next all the way down the stack
11: dry your project completely under a heavy stack of books
12: cut a strip of paper twice the width of the thickness of the spine and the length of the book
13: using a glue stick, affix the strip to the spine of the book
14: wrap two rubber bands around the book, then dry it under the stack of books again

What you've created is a sturdy, chunky board-book style mini-book. We use this books for a variety of projects, so we tend to make several at a time. Here are some ideas we've explored with these books:

1: an "all about me" book
2: an explorer's nature journal
3: a what I read today and why I liked it book
4: a what I helped cook today and why I liked it book
5: a "my favorite things" book
6: a multi-page greeting card style book
7: a mini scrapbook
8: a collage book
9: a storybook
10: a long letter

Because it tends to take a considerable chunk of time for my kids and I to create several of these books, we're able to spread this project over more than one day. We'll create the books on one day, then use them on one or two more days throughout spring break. They particularly enjoy the nature journals we create because, during spring break, they love the idea of packing a backpack full of items suitable for an adventure.