Mix & Match Book

At a craft show a few months ago, I came across this charming and beautifully constructed mix & match book called A Mixup at the Zoo by the talented Amelia Kieras. It reminded me of the fun and creativity of this microgenre and inspired me to consider all of the fun kids could have making their own.

This project could be a way for students to share and extend what they have learned about lots of different science and social studies topics. Just a few possibilities:

• adaptations of animals
• adaptations of plants
• ecosystems
• landforms
• a typical kid in Ohio from prehistoric to modern times
• jobs/members of a community
• famous inventors/artists/athletes/explorers/people from history
• characters in a novel
• to develop vocabulary for English Language Learners
• to develop an understanding of basic parts of speech

Timing If used as a performance assessment project after a content unit of study, this product this could be completed in 1-3 weeks. It could also be used alongside the content being studied as a way to gather and interpret learning.

Guiding Questions: These questions will likely be adapted based upon the specific content you are digging into, but provide a starting point as your students think about how to construct their mix & match book and why it’s important.

• What is important about the whole image that you are seeing or creating?
• What big parts make up the whole in your study?
• How can the parts be represented visually?
• What is the purpose of each part? What does each part contribute to the whole?
• What happens if you mix up the parts? What “what if” stories can you tell when you put parts together in new ways?
• What big takeaways do you have from thinking about parts and wholes and what might happen if you mixed up the parts?

Mentor Texts: A few suggested books and activities that will help your students think about the relationship between parts and the whole, how to re-imagine

A Mixup at the Zoo by Amelia Kieras Seriously, if you can, just order a copy of this lovely book. It’s creative, inspiring, and a beautiful piece of art to own. Have your students tell you stories about the animals they create as they flip. Encourage your students to visualize what they can create as they read it.

 

Fashion Plates with Sports Expansion Pack I loved Fashion Plates as a kid and was so excited to see that there are new options available now. What a great way for your students to see that they can take apart and rebuild in new ways?

 

Action Plates Even better! Have you kids invent and design new superheroes! What kinds of powers and features can they put together in new ways? And why?

 

What If You Had Animal Teeth/Hair/Nose/Eyes/Feet/Ears? by Sandra Markle and Howard McWilliam. If you haven’t seen this charming series of nonfiction picture books from Scholastic, you must check them out! Each book focuses on a specific body part of animals and the adaptation of each in different animals for different purposes. Part nonfiction with great photos and fascinating facts; part silly illustration with wildly wonderful “what ifs?” these books are engaging and encourage inventiveness about the way parts relate to the whole and their purpose.

Now and Ben: The Modern Inventions of Benjamin Franklin by Gene Barretta. This fun picture book shows how many of our modern day tools and technology have roots in Ben Franklin’s inventions. It’s a fun way to introduce the idea that we can invent by reimagining, seeing old things in new ways, and putting the pieces together in different ways.

 

Aviary Wonders Inc. Spring Catalog and Instruction Manual by Kate Samworth is one the most innovative and brilliant picture books of the last several years. Designed as a catalog in the future, the setting is a world in which birds are extinct and one must order birds in pieces and parts. This book provides a deep dive into the amazing complexity of birds’ amazing adaptations while powerfully reminding the reader of the call to action–to preserve the planet in a way that allows them to survive and thrive.

Crocopotamus by Mary Murphy. There are quite a few mix & match board books out there, but this fun book flips in the middle and splits each animal name in half. Give kids a chance to play around with it and describe what the invented animals might be like.

 

Muddle and Match: Jungle Animals by Stephanie Hinton. This would be a great one to have as a mentor if you plan to assign your students to write text on opposing pages that can be mixed and matched. It will allow you to think through the kind of text you want students to write, how it should be split between the sections of the pages, and what the mixed up possibilities might be.

Deep Reading & Analysis Mini Lessons The reading & analysis mini lessons can probably be condensed into just 1-2 lessons, but do make sure you take time as a class to think about the guiding questions and to play!

• Develop Familiarity with the Genre: Bring in examples of mix & match books. There are several board books that are about basic concepts in addition to the mentor texts listed about. Give students an opportunity to do other things that will allow them to consider the relationship between parts & the whole: Fashion/Action plates, puzzles, Legos, etc.
• Study the Whole: Use A Mixup at the Zoo or another mix & match book to study what the whole of each animal (or person/object illustrated) looks like. Discuss what you notice: how the illustrator filled the pages; the consistency of scale used on each page; what the thematic connection is between pages.
• Name the Parts: Turn Specifics into Generalizations: Look at the way each page has been cut. As you study the way the pages were cut, encourage your students to come up with category names that accurately classify what’s shown in each section. For example, in A Mixup at the Zoo, there are three sections: heads, torsos, legs.
• Writing? Some mix & match books are just illustrations, but others have text. If there are words, notice what they are, where they are, and what function they serve as you read together. What happens to the words when the illustration is in its whole version? What happens if it gets mixed up?
• Play! Give kids time and opportunity to play with these mix & match books and to talk about them. What do they notice? What’s silly and fun? What “what ifs?” can they invent?
• Read Like a Writer: Notice the Artist & Author Moves Review the mix & match books and notice where there were intentional crafting decisions. For example, in A Mixup at the Zoo, your students might notice that the animals are realistic not fantasy; they are drawn in a cartoonish rather than realistic way (dig into that–what makes them cartoonish?); that the artist split the pages really carefully so that hands & arms are all in the torso section; that the bottom third shows their habitat but doesn’t extend up so you can mix up the animals.
• Discuss the Guiding Questions: Classifying, categorizing, and generalizing are important critical thinking skills and can be delved into with creativity and fun here. Guide your students to think through the purpose of each major part and what the illustrations & words teach us about the functions. Encourage lots of imagining and storytelling as you dig into what can be learned and shown with mix & match books.

Writing Mini Lessons Be ready to give some guidance about expectations for content, length (how many pages), teaching out to be included, and writing.

• Plan: What Parts = the Whole? Help your students think through (whole class or small group) how the relationship of parts: whole works with your content area. For example, if you are studying birds, you might think head + body & wings + feet = the whole bird. If you are studying landforms, you might think above Earth’s surface + ground level + underground = the whole. If you are representing characters or people, perhaps the head + torso  + legs  = the whole.
• Think Visually Give your children a simple template for planning and drafting their pages. I would likely just use standard 8.5 x 11 paper with light lines dividing them into 3-4 sections (depending on what categories/parts you determined together that they’ll need). Encourage your students to think about how for each character or object, they’ll fit the part category into the appropriate space. I’d make sure they start with light pencil sketches so that they can fix easily and work within the space for the category.
• Parts & Functions: Create class or small group expectations of how the illustration of each part should teach its function. For example, if you’re studying dinosaurs, the teeth should probably be expected to illustrate whether they were herbivores or carnivores. If you are studying famous people, perhaps they can have tools or objects in their hands that illustrate what they’re best known for. If you are studying plants, the bottom section could illustrate their root structure and habitat. Come up with common guidelines for groups working on common content area, but remember that this should be fun so students may want to experiment and play with those guidelines. You can always support them to think of a fix if a risk doesn’t work out as intended.
• Writing? Whether to include writing may be a teacher decision or a student decision, but if you are going to require it or give it as an option, I’d encourage you to take some time to think it through with kids. Questions to consider: What do you want the words to do–teach information? share vocabulary? make silly stories? What kinds of words will you use? Single words, phrases, complete sentences? Will you try to use word play like alliteration or rhyme? Where will you put the words? On the illustration itself or the opposing page? Will you put words in each section or only in one? What will be the effect of the words when the illustrations get mixed up? Think through these questions together so students plan their word purpose, word choice, and layout carefully.
• It’s Alive! Give students time and guidance to make their illustrations and words come alive. Encourage them to add little details that symbolize big ideas or information. Encourage them to add color, beauty, silliness, and creativity to their pictures and words.

Revise, Edit, & Publish

• What I Love… What I want you to notice: Give students to share some of their illustrations with either the whole class or in small groups. Have them focus their sharing with “What I love ___” and “What I want you to notice ____” as they share. Reflect together on the kinds of things they might have missed looking quickly, but that they could notice and learn about if they studied carefully. Encourage students to think about how they can be inspired to teach and entertain as they revise their own books.
• Copyedit for Clarity Because words haven’t been the primary focus of this writing task and because there may well be very few words, this is a great project to focus on the power of copyediting, if your students have included writing. Look back at capitalization, spelling, spacing, and punctuation. When there are just a few words, each has great power and responsibility to be clear and help the reader!
• Layout Putting these mix & match books together may require a few steps. You may want to put final pages on card stock, if it’s available. Determine whether you want to have the pages laminated–if so, consider whether to do it before or after cutting (before will be faster; after will be sturdier). Determine how you want to bind the books: three ring binder? stapled? tied with string? plastic spiral binding? Check to be certain students’ books are put together in the right order–especially if they have written words on the opposing page! Use a paper cutter to cut pages–use your discernment about whether to do this before or after binding based upon the kind of binding you use and how long the books are (it’ll take a lot more time to put them together once they’re cut apart, but not all types of binding will lend themselves to using the paper cutter).  Be  certain that pages have enough support to be anchored at the binding once they’re cut.
• Publishing Once books are put together, cut, and bound, have students do a final proofread to ensure that their books are put together in the right order, that each section of each page is anchored into the binding, and that the pages can turn easily.

Celebrate Give students plenty of opportunities to read their own and other’s books. Have a book swap party where students swap and read each other’s books. Encourage students to tell or write “What if?” stories inspired by the books their classmates wrote.