Make a Phone Book

Alright, I know not many of us use hard copies of phone books anymore. Most of us use google, online white pages, etc. to find what we need. But, one element I LOVED in a classroom dramatic play center that would be GREAT in your home playroom is to put a homemade phone book by an old phone and allow your little one to role play calling their special friends.

Kids LOVE to roll play and this little activity gives them number recognition practice, familiarity with names starting with different letters of the alphabet, and research skills because they have to “look up” the names to call the characters.

My suggestion for how to make the phone book is to go online and find printable coloring pages of your children’s favorite TV or movie characters like Woody from Toy Story, or Dora the Explorer, etc. (try to find coloring pages WITH the character’s names on them), print them, and write made-up numbers on each page. Allow your child to color the pages and then place them in ABC order (you can even buy the alphabet dividers and make a binder of character’s numbers if you really want to be fancy). Another more simple option is to find an old coloring book and write the names and “numbers” of the characters and use that as a phone book.
Either way, jazz up the idea to your kids and get them excited about calling all their favorite “friends.”
Here is one example from PBS kids COLORING Pages:

After you print it you would add the number (I saved it as a screenshot, opened it in Paint, and added the text number just to show you what it might look like)