Mrs. B-W’s class at Nicolson Elementary School did some repurposing of text books that were past their prime. Because text books cannot be recycled, Mrs. B-W saved these resources from the landfill! They are a great example of how to turn some trash to treasure. Our class made book bursts and treasure boxes. The book bursts were a very successful project. As you can see some students went above and beyond and kept making more and teaching others how to make them too!
The text books were deconstructed before the class began. The front and back covers were cut off and then the books were cut into quarters with an exacto knife and a ruler. After cutting a couple this way, they remaining books were cut with a bandsaw.
In the classroom, each student started to fold their book bursts. The first step was to fold the top page in half back to the spine of the book. The second step was to fold the second page in half and then fold it once more into quarters back to the spine (see above). Then the process was repeated until all of the pages were folded.
Further directions for this craft can be found in, “The Repurposed Library, 33 Craft Projects That Give Old Books New Life” by Lisa Occhipinti.
