I just introduced a unit using altered books as the base. The theme is
words, and somehow, they have to show nouns, verbs, etc. (I also teach
7th grade language and we struggle in that area). The book has to
relate to them, and it can't LOOK like a language book. The first class
was spent looking at examples of altered book pages (used internet and
some hard samples), talking about it, and handing out a materials and
expectations list (they had so much to say we ran out of time to go
over that! That was just before lunch. By that afternoon, I was already
seeing examples of finished pages, and the question was: Are these due
next week? I HADN'T EVEN GIVEN THEM AN ASSIGNMENT FOR IT YET!!! We used
old text books and encyclopedias. Some wanted to bring in their own
books. If I don't go crazy hauling (I'm a cart teacher) all the stuff I
want to make available around, it's going to be great! And very
inexpensive, aside from that I'm using this to 'justify' some purchases
. . .
