Class phone book --template

At the end of the year, my son's teachers encourage the students to exchange phone numbers with one another. Especially in the Autism class since those students may or may not think to collect phone numbers otherwise. Last year my then 3 year old's pre-school teacher made up little blank booklets for the kids to go around filling in. I tried and tried to get him to get some numbers. He just wasn't interested. This year I decided to have him make a phone book to put all his friends numbers in. We went to the store and he got to pick out the color for the cover and some alphabet stickers.

We made ours using:
a "cool foam" sheet (could also be called "fun foam").
Foam stickers
embroidery thread and large needle
Velcro
Printed address sheet (email us for the PDF)

I started out by cutting the foam sheet in half to make 2 covers just larger than the 8.5x11" paper for the inserts. I printed out the two sided template on both sides of the paper. Two sheets of paper will then hold 24 phone numbers.

I folded the insert pages in half and did the same with the foam. The foam does not crease well so I used a binder clip to hold one end of the fold while I stitched the book together. I made long stitches with embroidery floss so that the paper would not tear out easily. You could also put a piece of tape down the center before stitching to reinforce the paper. I simply knotted it off at both ends inside the book

Here you can see the back of the book. I cut another piece of foam about 1" wide by 5.5" long. I stitched it to the back cover at approximately the center of the book. Older kids can do the stitching themselves.

For the front closure I used self stick Velcro. This will keep the book closed when not in use.

My boys decorated their phone books with foam stickers. This is the one my 4 year old made. He did the same with the inside of the back cover. I will have to make sure he has a marker to write the names and phone numbers down. The raised stickers will make it hard to use a ball point pen, pencil or crayon. On the cover he used alphabet stickers to spell out his name and added just 3 star stickers. My 7 year old used a different set of alphabet stickers and put his name down the book (rather than across like his brother).

Here are two different templates that can be used for this. The first one is just one half of an 8.5 x 11" sheet of paper. The other has two sets of address lines on a full 8.5x11" sheet of paper. You can right click on these and then save as. The single page layout should be 5.5 x 8.5 (half a letter size). You can click on the above picture (you may have to resize it)

The two page layout is 8.5 x 11 (letter size)

Another idea is to simply print some of the address sheets for the class. You can add your child's name and address to the first line. I am going to make up some address labels with my son's name, phone number and address so that he can simply give his friends a sticker for their phone lists.

Katrina



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Rebecca here, with my version of the phone book:

I had just been wanting to make up a phone book for my kids phone numbers, and I just got a notice from one of my children's teachers if I wanted my child to share information with other children from her class. So, this project was perfect timing for me. My kids have not been using the phone much yet. However, over the past few months my oldest child has started doing one on one sleepovers with a new friend that is quickly becoming a Best Friend. However, we keep losing the tiny slip of paper that holds this new friends phone number. Plus, every time we have this friend come over, I am asking for the parents' information again. I was thinking that it would be nice to have all of this in one place, by the phone. I really like how this turned out.

I wanted something tiny, yet sturdy. I also did not want the pages to be able to fall out. So, this spiral bound index cards fit the bill perfectly. Except that it was plain and ugly. These pages are the perfect stiffness for this kind of a book. I also found some fun coordinating papers (me? use paper? Never!)
I settled on covering the phone book with this paper, because it had all the work done for me. I did not want this to be a project that took much time at all! This paper was already "layered" and had a scalloped edge. Don't ask me why but I wanted a decorative edge along one side. I just laid the index card cover over the part of the paper that I wanted and traced it out. I did not want the blue and white of the cover of the index cards to show at all, so I just cut notches out of the paper, for the wire part of the spiral binding to go through. It was easy peasy to do. Then, I glued it down with my new favorite paper glue! I also cut out some of the sayings from the coordinating papers, as they were all about friends. I decided to go with just a simple "Friends" saying. I tore it out of the paper and then curled the edges up before I glued it onto the center of my cover. See, super easy!

I love how these pages turned out. I used Katrina's template and printed it out on my coordinating paper, adjusted to the size of my index cards.
I alternated between these two patterns because they were simple and would not keep you from seeing the information (which is the whole point of this cute little book). I love how no 2 pages are exactly the same. These index cards are perforated and so if we make a mistake or someone moves, I will just rip the page out and write the new information onto a new page. Because this will just be housing our friends' numbers, I don't care if it's in alphabetical order or not. However, if I was going to put all my numbers into it, I would make cute tabs and attach them sticking out from the sides, to keep it all in alphabetical order. I would also write everything in pencil, too so that it can be erased when people's information changes (as it always does due to people moving, changing phone carriers and therefore phone numbers, etc).

I will be sending this book to school with my children, until they get all of their friends information. I'm also contemplating something like what Anjeanette has done for her Son, and she has an example of below this. I was just going to print up a few extras of the template on my cute coordinating paper and fill in my girls' information. Then, laminate them to give them stability. I guess they'd end up being like business cards for the girls' to pass out at school to their friends.

Thanks for the great idea, and template Katrina!

Rebecca

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Anjeanette here.

What a great idea Katrina. I have something to add to this. Every year at the end of the year I find some cute school clip art, I put a note on it with my son's phone number and a little message and I print them out for him to hand out on the last day of school. We actually got to know a few kids last summer because they had our phone number to call.

I put a little message like this on them. I print them out as wallet size so I can get a handful for each page I print out. I also laminate them and put a magnet on the back. This obviously is not the one I am using this year. I do think my son is Super though;)

At the end of swimming lessons one year, I made a little goodie thing with our number. I found a small Goldfish carton. I cut out a little clip art swimmer and put it on the side of the carton. I found a fish clip art image and typed out "I've enjoyed swimming with you. I hope to catch you as a new friend" then it had my son's and my name and our number on it. We snagged some really great friends from that;) I apologize for the crummy pictures. They were from my camera phone years ago. I had taken two of the fish and sandwiched a paperclip between them. Then I tied some string to the paperclip and then to a dowel. It was supposed to be a fishing pole. And the fish had a magnet on the back too.

I am so glad you did this Katrina or I would have forgotten that I need to make the effort for my son to hand out his number. We have never collected numbers though. I know on those long, hot (we live in Arizona desert people) days of summer, it would have been nice to have some numbers to call.