Using Printables: How to Make the Small Book

Several of the packs have a page called a small book. What is this small book?

Well, it is a piece of paper turned into an 8-page book. These are fun small and great for little hands.

They make great learning tools and I’ve made several of them in the printables on the site. And told I’m going to show you how to make the books.

Using Printables: How to Make the Small Book - how to make the 8-page books out of one piece of paper - 3Dinosaurs.com

We have included links to some of the products and resources we have used with this activity. If you purchase via the links we may earn a small commission.

How to make the small folding books is one question I get asked a lot. I keep sending people elsewhere to get help and I thought it was time to show you how I do it.

For this example I’m using the Free Apple Activities Pack.

You can also see how to do this with a single piece of paper in How to Make a Flip Book for Kids

What you need to make the small folding books

Using Printables: How to Make the Small Book - 3Dinosaurs.com

How to make the page into a small folding book

These are the steps you follow to learn how to fold the books.

1. You turn the paper print side down. You then fold the paper in half vertically. The fold should match up with the line in the middle of the paper. You want to fold the long edge to the long edge.

Using Printables: How to Make the Small Book - 3Dinosaurs.com

2. With the paper still folding in half, you are going to fold the paper in have horizontally. You can use the line in the center. You are folding the short sides to the short sides.

Using Printables: How to Make the Small Book - 3Dinosaurs.com

3. You repeat the fold in the same direction you just did. You will only be able to see one panel of the book once you finish the fold.

Using Printables: How to Make the Small Book - 3Dinosaurs.com

4. You open up all the folds and you can see the page is divided into eight different panels.

Using Printables: How to Make the Small Book - 3Dinosaurs.com

5. You fold the paper in half the opposite of the first fold you did. Then you place that paper with the fold toward you and cut to the first line.

Using Printables: How to Make the Small Book - 3Dinosaurs.com

6. You unfold the paper and now you can see where you made the cut in the center.

Using Printables: How to Make the Small Book - 3Dinosaurs.com

7. Fold the paper in half again horizontally and stand it up. It will look similar to below. You can see that the cut edge is up.

Using Printables: How to Make the Small Book - 3Dinosaurs.com

8. You push the outside of the book into the middle. You want it to look like an “x” in the middle.

Using Printables: How to Make the Small Book - 3Dinosaurs.com

9. You find the outside of the book and fold the ends towards each other.

Using Printables: How to Make the Small Book - 3Dinosaurs.com

10. After the ends of the book are on the outside you will want to repress all the folds on the book.

Using Printables: How to Make the Small Book - 3Dinosaurs.com

If you have issues doing all the folds you can use a craft stick to do the folds.

Here are some packs with the small books:

Using Printables: How to Make the Small Book - 3Dinosaurs.com

Cassie – 3Dinosaurs.com

12 Comments

  1. LOVE the mini books! I learned how to make them back in college and I’m SO GLAD there are other ones out there now so I don’t have to create them myself!

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