Country Books

I have a lot of old travel guides lying around - many from trips that Jake and I have taken together, and some from trips that I wish we could have taken!  Used bookstores won't buy the guides because they're outdated, so I've thought about just donating them to Goodwill, but there's the same problem - do people want outdated guides?  So, the other day it dawned on me...I could break the guides up and make little books about various countries.  Down the road when Ben is ready to learn about geography, we could have little lessons on various countries - he could look at the maps and color photos, we could cook food from the country (or get take-out depending on the degree of difficulty)...he could learn about traditional clothing from each place, customs and holidays, and maybe some phrases in new languages.  I figure this project is going to take me awhile, so the first thing to do is figure out what these books are going to look like, and how I'll bind them together.

I'm going to start with the first guide I pulled from my stack:  Puerto Rico.  It will be my test country.

My next step is to search around the internet for book ideas.  I want to be able to include pages for him to write on - maybe questions that he can use the internet or other books to answer.  Maybe a place for him to include his own questions and thoughts about a specific country.  I could just include blank pages, or the book could have rings that open and close for the addition of new pages (like a small binder).  Do I laminate the pages?  Lots to think about here...so I better get started.