Designing with Books

Kids want to be producers, not just consumers. When my 6-year old triplets read a book, they often clamor to "do a project" afterwards. This works best with books that use design principles like collage instead of high-level drawing and painting.

This week, it was Gerald McDermott's Anansi the Spider, which combines African folk motifs with international pictograms, tied together with text in Helvetica. Multi-Cultural Modern, circa 1972.



We used 12" by 12" paper (from the scrapbooking aisle), plus strips of paper and round color-coding labels. We tried it at home first, and then went public in their kindergarten class. The teacher appreciated the literary tie-in!