Making Zines with Kids

In a previous post, I showed many examples of zines that I had purchased from a zinefest. I tried it out with a group of 4th/5th graders and I am happy to say it was a success! It was the first time I had made zines with students before and one student told me that this was a project I should keep for next year! Other kids agreed.

If you are looking for a FREE blank printable zine template, check out this FREE blank zine resource.

If you are interested in an All About Me zine art project with 3 different prompted zine templates, check out this All About Me Zines resource.

In this blog post, I am sharing some zines we made with a blank zine template. The theme was open-ended! We started by watching this video about zines from Tate.

I showed them some examples of zines and I had a short powerpoint about making zines. We used templates to design our zines.

You can see in this example that all of the pages are made on one sheet of paper, cut in the middle and then folded.

A hand-drawn zine titled "Neighbor Dogs" with sketches of different dogs and their descriptions, perfect for kids who love making creative projects, all presented on a checkered surface.
Twelve handmade kids' zines with illustrated covers are arranged on a white surface, displaying various titles, drawings, and handwritten text—a colorful showcase of making zines.
A hand holds an open booklet with colorful text and drawings, showcasing a basket with tennis rackets and a blue butterfly.
A hand-drawn comic for kids features owl, panda, turtle, goat, and fox characters with dialogue: "Time to fight!" "Nope," "Yes!" "NO!".
A handmade card perfect for kids, featuring "I love this color" on one side and "I ♥ Strawberries" with a cute strawberry image on the other.
A hand holds an open booklet with red, pink, and orange color swatches on its pages.
An open booklet features yellow circles on the left page and textured green circles on the right page.
A comic with a frog wanting his head glittery, going to see the king in his normal house on a hill.
Hand-drawn booklet about pugs listing reasons to get one, with a pug illustration and hand-written text.
A hand-drawn comic for kids featuring an alien abduction of a rabbit with the text "They are animal nappers! There is NO EVIDENCE."
A collage of various animals, including a shark, chipmunk, trout, orcas, ball pythons, and a giraffe, with handwritten labels
Handmade zine with text "I LOVE PAINTING" on the left page showcasing vibrant artwork. The right page features "I LOVE DOGS" accompanied by a charming dog image.
Hand-drawn comic with a fox saying, "Hello. We are about to save the world from a dragon." Featuring a koala and a bird.
A hand holds an illustrated booklet with definitions and descriptions of lesbian and gay under the "LGBTQ" category, perfect for kids interested in making their own zines.
Hand holding a booklet with crochet instructions: Step 3 says "insert crochet hook and pull up a loop" and Step 4 says "pull yarn through."
Open book featuring drawings of pencils with the text "PERFECT" on the left page and a cookie with "FOOD" on the right, making for an intriguing zine layout that kids will love.
A handmade card with "believe u got this!" text above images of yellow and purple flowers.

Have you ever made zines with your classes? Do you have any good resources to share on this topic?

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3 Comments

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  2. Can’t wait to try this. How many (say 50 min) classes would this take to do? Did you provide all the idfferent photos for collage, or ask the kids to bring in materials? Thanks so much for sharing this.