A lovely walk and a new book
We quite often visit Lyme Regis for a walk and a meander through the town stopping of course for a cup of tea and usually a cake. The landscaped gardens above the beach are one of my favourite places. This part of the coastline is fossil heaven and so there are lots of places to see fossils that have been discovered in the area. There are several children’s books based on Mary Anning and fossil hunting, my favourite being Stone Girl Bone Girl by Laurence Anholt.
But Lyme Regis is also one of those rare places nowadays that has an independent book shop and you know what that means! Today’s visit was no exception. I bought a wonderful little fold-up book of the skyline of London illustrated by Sarah McMenemy produced by Walker Books.
The book folds out to show the outline of the London skyline with text for each building that stretches into the sky. And because you never stop being a teacher, I thought that this would make a wonderful model for children to create their own version about the local environment or any environment that children are looking at. Anyone familiar with Paul Johnson’s work will be familiar with making folded paper books like this. I am very taken with the boat in the last picture on his site.
It would also be a great way to present the outcome of an author study by producing a book of the characters in the author’s book or settings or anything else that is a theme in the writing. The book has two different types of pop-up so it wouldn’t be too difficult to show children how to make them. You can also make the little box that the book fits in.
It is a long time since I last made a folded paper book so I am off to have a go. Here’s hoping that you are inspired to try something new/old/different this holiday. Happy Christmas everyone. See you in the New Year.
December 24th, 2011 at 7:24 am
I am so thrilled you spoke about this book, because we will be in London next year and I will definitely look for it while there. The Fossil Coast sounds fascinating and I now hope to get there too.
Merry Christmas, Joy, and thanks for all your great posts this year!