Because Sean Patrick is so into tracing right now (and because he is a perfectionist), I decided to make him a book that he could use dry-erase markers and Mr. Clean magic erasers to practice his tracing over and over again without getting frustrated about markings on his paper (courtesy of his little sister).
I printed the pages of my tracing book onto card stock and laminated them with my inexpensive laminator that I bought at WalMart.
We work on it a little each day and I encourage him to do whatever letters he would like to practice making, but I always try to make the formation fun for him. For example, when we were writing “A” I told him to slide down this slide (the left slanted line) then to slide down that slide (the right slanted line), and then to climb across the monkey bars. He said exactly what I said as he traced A the next few times. And for lowercase “a” we rode around the merry-go-round and then climbed down the ladder.
If you don’t have a laminator and you don’t want to get it laminated you can also just print it and let your little one trace the pages individually with crayons 🙂
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A friend of mine and retired Kindergarten teacher named Joy helps me in my classroom and has introduced me to one of many of my new favorite things!
A NAPKIN BOOK…. I mean, how many fun seasonal and themed napkins can you find at dollar tree or even leftover from birthday parties of ages past?!?
All you need to do is make labels with a chosen title and a space for your little “author” like “By ___________” and stick it on the front….. Unless you find an awesome napkin like Joy found that says “Boo!” which is the title of our frist napkin book.
Then print a fun sentence that coordinates with the book like “Boo said the __________.” multiple times on a single page, Cut it out, and staple it inside the napkin.
To make it that much more fun, Joy found Halloween themed stickers and that is going to be the illustration of each page of the book.
She even made a legend so the kids will know how to write the words in the free space of their sentence.
I love love this activity and will be making lots of books like it 🙂
Oh, so many uses for such a simple pumpkin template. Yes, I have yet another use for that simple pdf that I made by copying a pumpkin di-cut, and todays activity idea develops social-emotional skills and reading skills.
All you need to do is print the template, talk with your little ones about feelings that we have and brainstorm a list of them (sad, mad, silly, happy, etc.). Then, try to make a Jack-O-Lantern expression that matches that emotion.
After doing that, cut them out, have your little one try to help you write the word that sounds out that feeling “/s//a//d/” and put all the jack’s together to make a book. Give it a title and tah-dah, you have a Book about Jack.
Accomodate each page description with whatever your little one is capable of or interested in. Your little one might like a more creative description under each jack expression like “Jack-O-Silly” or your little one might want to make a repetitive book that says “Jack is…” on each page. Let your little one make it his/her own!
My niece’s birthday is right around the corner so I am making her a book; I decided to share a sneak peek with my mommy teachers.
These are some of the materials I am using:
magazine tear-outs
ribbon
scrapbook paper
hole-punch (and a drill for the cardboard)
24″ x 12″ piece of cardboard
I cut a cardboard box that creased in the middle into a 24″ x 12″ foldable. Then I covered the outside and inside with cute scrapbook paper and a fun little title “Things To Do Just Me and You.”
I asked my husband to drill holes though the entire book (minus the pages) that I will use to bind the book with a ribbon. I am going to hole punch the pages for cleaner lines.
Next, I decorated the inside with pictures that I cut out from magazines. Each page will have a little date idea for us. This page is going to say: “We can pick out your birthday cake” and “We can go to the candy shop.”
This page is going to say something like: “We can make ice cream cones.”
Each page is going to begin with “we can” so that some of the text will be repetitive and the rest of the text will require her to use her reading strategies. I will share the final product when I get it done, but for now I hope this idea gives you a fun craft-book idea to make with/for your little one.