Bookbinding for Homeschooling
By Dr. Bette Klein

Download a free program called "Fineprint" from www.fineprint.com. It is free and allows you to print in booklet or regular size, but it figures out the pagination for you so your printed book comes out correctly. It is really quite handy.

 

Materials:

 

Poster board
2" wide masking tape
Stapler or (binding cord and drill with appropriate
drill bit and larder needle) The binding cord could be string,
dental floss (mint is interesting), tatting yarn, or even fishing line.
Ruler
Scissors
Pages for binding
Place to make a mess

 

  1. Cut poster board to one-eighth inch larger than your paper
    on all sides for the cover.
  2. Measure the thickness of your book pages (ex. .5 inch, .25 inch, etc.). Use masking (2 ") wide masking tape and tape the length of your book spine together leaving .25 inch more space than your book pages' thickness.
  3. Tape spine on both sides folding tape in on the inside of the spine.
  4. Face book cover inside down and tape along all outside edges at half the width of the wide tape, then cut corners at a 45° angle so that you can fold the tape inside the cover and mate the edges at a closed chevron (make an inside corner).
  5. Take your book pages and square them up. Then place them into the book cover with the inside snugly against the spine. Use clothespins or spring clamps to hold pages and book cover snugly together.
  6. Either use heavy duty staples and staple along spine at .5 inch spacing, or place book on a disposable surface (such as scrap wood) and drill holes .5 inch apart, .25 to .5 inches from spine edge with a drill bit large enough to accommodate your needle and binding cord.
  7. After drilling the holes, start with needle and binding cord at one end of book spine and go through first hole. Tie a tight knot and pull knot towards hole, leaving about 3 inches of dangle. Thread cord in and out of each hole as a child would do a lacing card.

    At the end of the spine, loop cord over spine edge and go back through holes in the other direction so that each hole has been corded two times. When you get to the dangle cord, tie a tight knot and cut towards the hole edge.
  8. With a ruler, print the name of the book on the cover and down the spine so that it can be read while on a bookshelf.
  9. This method works wicked well. It is way cheap, and even workbooks last a loooooooong time using this method. Of course you can decorate the covers with contact paper (or other product) before taping and be creative.

Check Out

A free, full-featured text and screen reader is available from Awesome Library. With this you may not have to print out any books at all.

 

Harvest Homeschool Organizer Complete organizer with many features: Designed by Dr. David Klein, Instructional Designer at the University of Iowa Law School, and Dr. Elizabeth Klein, Homeschool mom of 9.

 


ISBN 0-486-27852-2 starting on page 113 for a more detailed study. About $6 used.
Book Binding Kids Page University Park Elementary School
U of Iowa Jone's Book Binding Tutorial

 

Additional information