How to Make Pop-Up Books With Pictures

Make a pop-up book together on a rainy day.

Invite your children to use the power of imagination to bring a story to life with the creation of a custom pop-up book. This activity helps children learn how to tap into their own creative visions to produce detailed storylines with full illustrations. Children benefit from learning how to develop characters while utilizing personal artistic skills to create dimensional renderings of realistic or imaginary settings. Most children will have the supplies to create the pop-up book on hand, so you shouldn't have to shell out a great deal of money to complete this project at home.

Things You'll Need

• Construction Paper
• Colored pencils
• Crayons
• Markers
• Scissors
• Paste

Instructions

1. Discuss the story you intend to tell in the pages of the pop-out book. Ask your child about the physical characteristics of the characters in the story and determine how the story will be divided among the pages of the finished pop-up book.

2. Let your child sketch out the characters on the construction paper with the colored pencils and decorate the pictures with finer details using the crayons and markers. Cut along the pencil outlines of the characters and set the cut-outs aside.

3. Fold one construction paper in half horizontally. Open the paper and draw a line in pencil down the fold line.

4. Speak with your child and determine how many pop-up pieces you would like on the first page of the book. Draw this number of boxes, with the fold line going through the center of each box.

5. Slit each side arm of the boxes five times. Fold the fold line again to strengthen the crease. Flip the paper over and gently push down on the slits, using your index finger to pop-up the pictures.

6. Open the paper and write the text of the story in marker. Decorate the page with the background details for the scene you describe. Paste the characters to the pop-up boxes.

7. Repeat Steps 3-6 to construct the remaining pages of your pop-up book.

8. Paste the underside of the right half of the first page to the underside of the left half of the following page. Repeat for all remaining pages. If you have a title for the story, write it in marker on the underside of the left half of the first page.

References

• Great Schools: Think 3-D: Make a Pop-Up Book