Pop-Up Crown Books

Bookmaking with Kids ☞Pop-Up Crowns☜

One of the easiest pop-ups to make, the pop-up crown book brings out the storyteller in every child. It’s a great format for retelling fairytales or inventing fractured fairytales and for challenging students to cast themselves as a royal character in their own adventure.

Materials & Tools • Medium weight paper, any color; 24 or 28 • Optional: Glue sticks, glitter pens, gold and lb. paper is a good choice, sturdy but not silver sprinkles, sequins, collage material. too thick for children to fold.

• Scissors, writing & drawing supplies.

Step By Step You can cut a pop-up crown into a page that’s simply been folded in half, as these diagrams illustrate. Or, you can cut a crown into a valley fold of an accordion book or into the fold of a single-sheet booklet.

Here are the steps:

• Fold a piece of paper in half lengthwise.

• Cut a straight line and a zigzag, starting at the fold.

• Fold the crown shape back and forth until it moves easily.

• Flatten the crown, then set your folded paper upright and push the crown forward.

• Fold the pages around the open pop-up and press it flat.

• Now every time you open and close your book, the crown will pop forward.

“Books take many shapes • Fold another piece of paper in half lengthwise to serve as the cover of your book. It and come in a variety of can be a different color and thicker, too. structures that fold and unfold Glue the two folded sheets together at the to reveal their contents in front edges. unexpected ways.” —Edward H. Hutchins, Book artist & educator

Visit www.bookmakingwithkids.com for great book-arts projects [email protected] • [email protected] IDEAS & RESOURCES

BOOKS ABOUT MAKING POP-UPS

What to Do With Pop-Up Crowns Carol Barton, The Pocket Paper Engineer, Volumes 1 & Retell a Fairytale 2 (www.popularkinetics.com), 2005 & 2008. • With a prince or princess sketched in under a pop-up crown, kids have a nifty Joan Irvine, How to Make format for retelling any fairytale starring a Pop-ups. (Beech Tree Books, William Morrow), 1991. royal character. Paul Johnson, Pop-up Paper • If kids draw a frog instead, they can retell Engineering, (The Falmer the Frog Prince. Press), 1992.

Barbara Valenta, Pop-O-Mania, • Or, let them draw any character they want (Dial Books), 1997. wearing a crown and then make up a story to go with their illustration. Invent Your Own Head Gear • Experiment with cuts of different shapes and dimensions. What kinds of hats can you make?

• Can you create the tall hat you see in Cat in the Hat? Create a Pop-Up Thought Balloon • Crowns and hats aren’t the only things you can put above your character’s head. What about the speech balloons or thought balloons where you can write down what your character is saying or thinking?

• What kinds of cuts will create speech or thought balloons?

Challenges • Can you cut a shape that will look like an umbrella?

• … a tent for camping?

• … a ball gown or a fancy skirt?

• … a bowtie?