Bookbinding topics through the grades

The following are a sample of bookbinding-related topics and where they might fit across various grades.

Grade 4

1. Paper making: Using recycled materials and water. Pressing,drying, coloring. Projects with paper, such as greeting cards, Origami, etc.

2. Starch-based glues: Using natural products such as corn starch, wheat starch, rye starch, oat starch, barley starch, potato starch, tapioca starch and pea starch. Paper mache projects, perhaps using some of the previously made paper.

3. Ink making with plant-based natural dyes: Using nuts, flowers, beets, cranberries, onions, lichen, blueberries, indigo, and many other sources. Combines well with a botany block. Drawing projects, such as drawing the plant that the dye came from, or creating greeting cards. Project to create disappearing ink, such as with onion juice.

Grade 5

1. Glue making with animal hide: Examples and stories from history, such as the first and only glue for over 4000 years, weapon making, violin and furniture making. Project to make a box with cardboard, hide glue, and leather or book cloth cover. Can included simple embossing.

2. Ink making with pigments: Making blue, brown, and black inks. Calligraphy projects using own inks, and perhaps homemade pens such as reed, bamboo, and feather pens. Study early letter forms up to the Roman serif.

3. Block printing with linoleum:  Using potatoes, linoleum, wood blocks and homemade inks. Can be a concluding project in the fifth grade woodworking class after students finish their carved egg.

Grade 6

1. Ribbon weaving: May fit well in a Celtic or Middle Ages block. Maybe best taught by Rochelle. Ribbons should be saved for use in the eighth grade bookbinding project.

2. Leather work: Simple, notebooks using homemade paper. Leather cutting, carving and stamping. Leather dying using dyes made in grades 4 and 5. Project making belt, gloves, jewelery, etc.

3. Illumination: Using hide glue (gesso), gold foil, wood substrate, and inks. Project to make a Russian iconography. (Greatly simplified process!). Relates well to a study of the Middle Ages.

Grade 7

1. Printing presses and book design: From scrolls to books, including the Greek “Biblio” to the Latin “Bible.” Golden Mean. Gutenberg's printing press. Page imposition. Modern printing presses. Great opportunity for a field trip to a local newspaper (before they're all gone!)

2. Calligraphy: Modern letter forms and type design. Logo designs and sign making. Advertising and persuasion. Letters as art. Art as propaganda. Fits with blocks on Revolutions and the transition to the modern era.

Grade 8

1. Advanced Glues: Chemical and molecular bonds. Plastics, PVCs and super glues. Intro to organic chemistry. Our oil addiction and why it's so tough to break. Ecology. Could be part of chemistry or modern history blocks.

2. Digital printing: Modern page design, modern type design, Binary mathematics, Boolian Algebra. ASCII and the Internet, DTP and the Web. Texting, shorthand, and the future of writing.

3. Bookbinding: The art of classical bookbinding. This project brings it all together.