Zines: Kids taking charge of their own writing

I hardly know a thing about zines. I was never cool. It's pronounced, "zeens", if you are as ignorant as me. Zines are little, independent, low budget, self-publications. A bit like a photocopied blog, from an era when blogs didn't exist. They can be about anything, usually combining images and text, and then run through a photocopier. Black and white mini magazines ready for an audience.

In trying to understand the zine, I found a handy little tutorial on how to make one from a single piece of paper. The idea is, you can do the layout of the entire zine on one page, whip it through the copier and fold into a booklet. It fits in an envelope, ready to post to all your eager, cool fans. Ours are micro, as I only had A4 paper. Click here for a complete tutorial.

image from experimentwithnature.com

It appears that children write best when they initiate and care about their own project. I have started folding a batch of zines so the kids can make up their own little publications. One child in particular is quite into it.

I wonder if we can make an Advent Calendar out of 25 zines...or maybe Christmas card zines?