Bookmarks

Hello,
Have you ever seen those lovely bookmarks in stores with the tassels and pictures and wished you could afford to give those out to your students? I have three inexpensive ideas for bookmarks.
1. You could order them from a library supply source. They have many different bookmarks from which to choose. Usually you can get 200 full color bookmarks for about $8.00 - $10.00. That is only about $0.04 - $0.05 per bookmark. One downside to this is that most of the time, you have 200 of the same picture. You can save them from year to year, but for a small school those would last quite a while.
2. You could photocopy bookmarks from a book like “The Bookmark Book” by Carolyn S. Brodie, Debra Goodrich, and Paula K. Montgomery. It is filled with nearly 100 pages of bookmarks three to a page that you can photocopy for use in your school. That is nearly 300 different bookmarks plus there are two pages of blank bookmark forms for making your own. The downside to this is that the bookmarks will be one color depending on the color paper or cardstock you copy them onto. The upside is that you will have the number of bookmarks you need, great variety, and about $0.02 or less depending on the cost of your paper and the cost to photocopy. Another upside is that you can hand out blank copies and have students design their own bookmarks. This would be a wonderful way to supplement a book report.
3. You can design your own bookmark from scratch and have it look professional and be in full color simply by using Power Point. Here’s how to do it.
a. Open Power Point. While in the ‘Home’ tab, go to the ‘Slides’ box and click ‘Layout’. Choose the blank slide.
b. Click the ‘View’ tab and in the ‘Show/Hide’ box check the box next to ‘Ruler’. You should see a ‘0’ (zero) in the center and the numbers 1 – 4 to the right and left of the slide.
c. Click ‘Home’ again and in the ‘Drawing’ box select the straight line with an arrow. It should be in the top row. Draw a line at the ‘0’ (zero) mark from top to bottom to divide the page in half. Then draw two more lines at the 2 ½ mark on either side so the slide is divided in four equal parts. Now you have a basic bookmark. Personalize it however you wish inserting textboxes and clip art to make the exact bookmark you need. Copy and paste to all four sections or make each section different. Print it out on cardstock and decorate further if you wish. Cut apart and you are all set. Go another step and punch a hole to add a tassel. This bookmark project is also a great one for students to do and can support nearly any area in the curriculum. Don’t forget to model to your students and cite any outside sources you use.
I have a number of different kinds of bookmarks I’ve made for our library. Back in October of 2010, I mentioned a way to teach the Dewey Decimal System by comparing it to a person growing. The one hundreds are “Who Am I?” and in that section we learn about ourselves, the two hundreds are “Who Is My God?” and we learn about religion there, and so on. If you missed that post, check my blog and read it there. Sdalibrarian.blogspot.com. If you would like a copy of the bookmark I made, I’ll be happy to send it to you.
I hope you have a good time designing bookmarks. Enjoy!
Audrey