Crafts Made from Books that Kids Can Make

April is School Library Month and National Librarian Day is celebrated on April 16, so I thought it would be fun to look at some crafts made with books and book pages. (Your librarian will want to suggest you only do this with damaged books, or old books from the thrift store, I’m sure.)

First, if you have whole books you want to craft with, you can make a cute monster out of a book with this tutorial from DIY N Crafts.

Or try this super cute hedgehog from Pink Stripey Socks. This one is a little smaller so kids might actually be willing to fold the pages long enough to finish it. But these kids of crafts are great for downtime or when you’re watching a movie at home.

This elephant from It’s All Kids Play is also done in a faster way that I think kids could make it through in order to finish it. You can also break the folding up into multiple sessions if you need to. And of course you can use this same idea to make all kinds of animals, so each child can decide what they want to make if you’re doing it with multiple kids or a classroom.

What if you’re working with a bunch of kids but don’t want to have to gather a bunch of books to craft with? There are plenty of crafts you can make with single book pages or a smaller quantity of pages than a whole book.

Book page bookmarks are super simple to make but also really cute. These instructions from Thrifty Fun use a gift tag as the template and to make the bookmark stronger, but you could make them different shapes and just use several layers of page or laminate them if you have a laminator to make them stronger.

These cute shape penguins from DIY Thought were actually made with newspaper, but you could use book pages as well and make different animals if you don’t want penguins (these could be bookmarks, too). And these folded paper stars are shown made with kraft paper, but the original inspiration, which you’ll see in the post at All Things Paper, was made out of book pages.

I also love these sweet pinwheels from Maya Smart made out of book pages, or your can make little paper bows out of book pages like these from Dukes and Duchesses. Turn the leftovers into a book page bunting like this one from Laura Radniecki to decorate the classroom and you’ll be all set for any book-related celebrations.

Gabon is a country in central Africa on the Equator, which is bordered by Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon and the Republic of the Congo, as well as the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Guinea. Let’s learn more.

Gabon Facts

Gabon has an area of 100,000 square miles, or 270,000 square kilometers and is home to about 2.3 million people. The capital and largest city is Libreville. Almost 90 percent of the land of Gabon is forest, and the nation has huge biodiversity.

The original inhabitants of Gabon were Bambenga, and the Kingdom of Orungu was established there in the 1700s, and France colonized the area in the later 19th century. Gabon gained its independence in 1960.

The official language is French and about 95 percent of the population is part of the Bantu ethnic groups. The majority of people are Christian.

Gabon comes from the Portuguese word gabao, which means hooded cloak. Portuguese explorers in the 1470s used the term to refer to the Komo river estuary, which they said resembled a cloak. Eventually the name spread to cover the whole region.

Gabon is a presidential republic with a legislature, though there have been many disputed elections and, in 2023, a military coup.

Gabon National Symbols

The Gabon flag consists of three horizontal stripes, in green, yellow and blue. The flag was adopted in 1960.

The national anthem is “La Concorde,” and it was written and adopted in 1960 as well.

The coat of arms features a ship on a shield with the same colors as the flag, with three yellow circles in the green section. Above the crest is a large tree, and the crest is flanked by black panthers. The motto, which translated to English is “unity, work, justice,” is below the shield, among the roots of the tree. The slogan that translates to “we shall go forward together” hang around the tree.

I couldn’t find any official national animals or plants, but black panthers are considered a national symbol because of their use on the coat of arms.

Gabon Learning Activities

Did you know black panthers aren’t a distinct species? In Africa they are leopards, but in other areas black panthers are actually cheetahs, bobcats, lynx or other big cats. Learn more about the animals of Gabon at A to Z Animals.

Check out Monts de Cristal, or the Crystal Mountains, home to a large diversity of wildlife (including lots of butterflies) and a large national park. There’s lots of great pictures on that page.

Adventures in a Messy Life has a little Gabon unit study that includes links to some videos, a recipe for African beignets, and notebooking pages available for purchase that you can use for any country in Africa.

Check out this video with interesting facts about Gabon from The African Script.

Find more resources for teaching about Gabon at Teachers Pay Teachers.

Learn more about traditional foods in Gabon from Chef’s Pencil, and check out this recipe for what’s considered the national dish of Gabon, poulet Nyembwe, a chicken dish made with red palm oil (which is what the dish is named for).

Have you read?

Gabon Facts

Gabon National Symbols

Gabon Learning Activities

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