Simple Accordion Fold Book

This hopefully will be a summer camp project! We had a lot of damaged books to breathe new life into and accordion books seemed a great way to do that. The problem was that a lot of the instructions were a little too complicated to do with a large group, so I tried to simplify them. (Any tips would be greatly appreciated!)

You can turn these fun little books into tiny mementos, scrapbooks, two sided stories, or even letters to friends. My first example I did a rewrite of St George and the Dragon with the dragon winning on the first side! I haven't decided what would be appropriate for the second side yet. My second trial is slowly becoming a series of haiku and collage to send a friend. I may turn the tiny offcut books into birthday cards :)

*Two sheets of 8.5”x14” paper

*Glue-glue sticks actually work great for this

*Scissors

*A Pencil

*A Ruler

Trim both pieces of paper to 5” tall so you’ll have two 5”x14” sheets. Next, cut 1” off of the length of one of the sheets. (So now one is 5”x13”)

On the full length sheet, make a line 1” in from the shorter side. Fold down along the line so you have a 1” tab folded in front.

Fold this sheet in half, matching the cut edge to the folded end.

Fold the ends behind the sheet to the middle fold at the center. Open and turn it over. The paper should be now folded down-up-down-up with that last little up being the small tab.

(Now you can erase your line!)

Next, take the shorter paper, and fold that in half.

Fold the ends of this sheet behind to the new fold. Open and turn over, this should be in a down-up-down pattern.

Put glue on the top of the tab and line up the other sheet on top so that the tab is hidden behind a full page.

Let dry, and decorate! You can make a cover from cardstock or cardboard. Or reuse a fun card! This is a great project to mix with recycling and collage

BONUS: If you trimmed your paper to 5” neatly, you should have two 3.5” lengths of paper to make an even tinier book!