Students take pride in their work. Many teachers have their students write stories or poems that are published and need book covers. Any help in making book covers is appreciated.

Book Covers Directions

Supplies:

• Cardboard cut in 9" x 12" or 6" x 9" We use cereal box weight cardboard. In fact, we use cereal boxes for the 6" x 9" size.
• Contact paper or prepasted wallpaper

1. For 9 x 12 book covers: cut contact paper in 21 inch lengths. For 9 x 6 cut paper in 11 inch lengths.

2.To find the center of the paper: fold in half and crease it lightly.

3. Cut off corners of the contact paper as shown.

4. Remove paper backing to expose sticky side of paper.

5.Position cardboards centered on contact paper. NOTE: leave a space about the size of a pencil width between the cardboards.

6. Fold up bottom. then fold down top. It helps to start folding at the center, working your way out to the sides.

7. Fold in the sides. It may be necessary to adjust your corner cuts to get a nice corner.

Tips:

• If you use cereal boxes as we do, be sure to use it with dark contact paper. Some lighter papers let the graphics on the cardboard come through.
• It can be very attractive to finish the insides of the covers with a simple sheet of paper.
• To keep the pages inside the cover you can staple, glue, or use plastic book binding rings. Our school has a machine which makes it easier to mount the book using the rings.
• We solicit volunteers to build the books from parents who can't get into school to volunteer. It is a wonderful way to give them a chance to be a meaningful part of their children's education. A cover kit of precut cardboards, contact paper and written directions are sent home via the student. We ask for them back in a week or so. There is a collection box for the finished covers.
• We budgeted $400 dollars for book covers this year. (We are making about 900) This covers the expense of the contact paper which we make every effort to buy on sale.
• The chairperson sends out a form to the teachers at the beginning and the end of the school year. She asks the teachers how many covers they will want. Doing this allows her to plan the budget and to delegate the work to have the covers available on time. We have found that Mother's Day is a high use time.

We also try to accommodate special paper requests like dinosaur paper for dino reports. This takes some preplanning on all our parts. In fact, we have not been able to find the dino paper. So we are using a plain paper and applying small dinosaur stickers.