Big Book Of Books And Activities

These books by Dinah Zike give a whole new approach to making easy hands on manipulatives. Although she came up with this as a public school teacher, it works well for home schoolers because it uses a few basic steps and everything else is based on those. The Big Book of Books is the basic book (if you have K-3 and have never used this, I'd recommend you start with this one). I simply loved the first book, and now am thoroughly enjoying the second, (if you have 4th grade and up, you might want to start with this one). Although construction paper would do to make almost all of these projects, Dinah Zike recommends you use special 60 wt and 67 wt paper that holds up better, goes through copy machines, and is easier to get older children to use. We have found that the selection of vibrant colors has, in some cases, served as an encourager. Generally we use more of the 8 ½" X 11" than you will the 11" X 17", but you do need both sizes to get the most out of these books. Not only do we use her method in our personal home schooling projects, but we use them in our local support groups, as well as our children's church without having to buy any extra books or supplies. Although the books say grades K - 6, I have found that in going to other local support group meetings, people are using her method in the upper levels for unit studies and book reports. If you ever have a chance to go to one of her seminars, I would highly recommend it.