I spent last week teaching my students how to be a kindergartener and next week I will meet with all of their moms and dads to teach them how to be a kindergarten parent. There is just SO much information that I have to squeeze into a 25 minute presentation. Those poor moms and dads tend to walk away with their heads spinning, so I give them a convenient and colorful parent flip book to take home that will help them to reference the most important information from the evening. It’s their go-to-guide for all things kindergarten.
I know your days are jam-packed right now, so I’ll show you how I set up my parent flip book, share a free editable template with you, AND give you a chance to win a box full of Astrobrights paper for your classroom. Settle in and get ready to have a great resource for your classroom parents.
Thank you to Astrobrights for sponsoring this post. I also included affiliate links in this post and I receive a small commission each time someone makes a purchase through one of my links. However, all opinions stated are my own and I only promote brands and products that I love.
How to Create a Colorful Parent Flip Book
It’s simple to prepare the materials for the parent flip book. You’ll want to start by customizing the text on each page to suit your classroom needs and expectations. The template is set up for you to share 8 pages of information. I choose to highlight the following areas:
my contact information
calendar of important kindergarten dates
start and end times, as well as our specials schedule
my kindergarten class rules
birthday celebration guidelines
information about learning to read in kindergarten
reminder about the kindergarten dress code
my classroom homework policy
Once the content for each page is edited in the template, copy each page onto a different color of Astrobrights paper. The pages are formatted to be cut vertically in half so you only need to make half as many copies of each pages as you have student in the class.
Colored paper is fun, but it’s even better when you can conserve resources and have more paper to use later on!
I used all of my favorite Astrobrights colors to create my parent flip books:
Lift-Off Lemon™
Cosmic Orange™
Rocket Red™
Pulsar Pink™
Outrageous Orchid™
Lunar Blue™
Vulcan Green™
Solar Yellow™
You can also find many of these colors in the Cheerful and Neon paper assortments on Amazon.
Once my copies were made, I trimmed the pages on my paper cutter using the cutting guide lines that are printed onto the pages. This creates a series of pages with varying heights for the flip book.
Once the pages are trimmed, it’s time to assemble! Layer each page with the shortest on top and the longest on the bottom. I add a sheet of Astrobrights Eclipse Black cardstock that’s been cut vertically in half to the back of the book for a little added durability.
Have you ever seen such a colorful display of information?
Once the pages for the parent flip book are arranged, the final step is to attach the pages into booklet form. I used my school’s comb binding machine (you can find a similar model here) to add a nice finish to my books. I also just discovered this sleek like coil binding machine that creates more permanent books on Amazon and I am completely intrigued.
Of course, if you don’t have access to a binding machine, that is OK!
Just add a few staples to the top and it works just fine <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2/72x72/1f642.png" alt="