Customer Reviews

Cutting Up in the Classroom: Using Diecut Shapes to Spark Creativity and Enhance Content Learning

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Sundberg and Day's useful book, Cutting up in the Classroom: Using Die Cut Shapes to Spark Creativity and Enhance Content Learning, is a must for teacher educators, k-12 teachers, professional development trainers, and school administrators! The authors get an A+ in their creation of a user-friendly guide to using electronic die-cutting machines to design letters, shapes, and patterns. I was impressed they chose the least expensive die-cutting machine on the market to demonstrate uses across the curriculum and grade levels. Sundberg and Day offer engaging and creative sample lessons for all major content areas. I was also pleased they chose common lessons that teachers and teacher interns may need a new "twist" in order to further engage students. For example, they offer a great lesson for literature and reading students, walking the teacher through how to use die cut materials to create classroom magazines. Many other useful sample lessons are included, such as dioramas for social studies, creating geometric shapes for math, and even fun items such as creating puppets and greeting cards. The authors also offer tips to help the novice get started. Being a novice myself, I found these tips very helpful!

Cutting Up in the Classroom has some very good ideas and clear illustrations, but seems dated. With the advent of Cricut and other cutters, as well as with the many ideas from scapbooking and cardmaking, this book seems lackluster. Also, there is little on sparking creativity, as promised in the title.