Homemade Puzzles
Here is another great idea for extra photos for those of you who have boxes lying around your house like I do. Let’s make some puzzles! You and the kids can make a few memories while practicing fine motor coordination and working on spacial relation skills. It is also a great rainy day activity.
This project is so simple and really fun for the kids. This particular project was done with preschool kids. Older kids can help you make the puzzles for the younger kids. All you need is scissors, a pen, baggies, photos, and a little time to spend with the kiddos reminiscing. I gave the kids a pile of photos to choose from. Then I cut the photos into two, three, or four parts. I marked the back of each puzzle piece with a number (or you could use a color instead) to distinguish between the different puzzles and put the individual puzzles into baggies (or envelopes if you like). You can also make old Christmas and birthday cards into puzzles. Once the holiday is over, you can still enjoy the cards. You will reignite memories every time you put together your homemade puzzles!
Personalized puzzles are more fun than the ones that you buy in the store, and if one gets lost, it isn’t a big loss. Try out this rainy day idea with your kids and see how much fun it can be!
Homemade Books
Do you have tons of old photos hanging around the house from your days before digital photos or ones that were printed for a scrapbook but they didn’t quite make into the album? I have boxes of pictures that I am storing right now. I really want to put those photos to good use. How about you? Enhance your home school reading curriculum with this great idea.
My daughter is on the brink of reading right now, and I am trying to give her lots of learning materials that will help her along. We created books that she can “read” with old baby pictures. This project requires at least two sessions that last about 45 minutes each (depending on your children’s ages). You will need glue, mounting paper, construction paper, stapler, and a permanent marker.
I gave my daughter a few old photos to select her favorites from. Then we mounted the photos onto scrapbooking paper, and I organized them into categories that made sense for a few short books. We put each group of photos in order and glued them onto construction paper. We talked about what was happening in each of the photos and came up with a sentence for each picture that I wrote in permanent marker on each page. Then we stapled the book together and added a paper binding to cover the staples. Finally, we read the book together pointing to each word on the page. Presto! Now she has books that she “wrote” and made, and she can read them!
The key here is that making books is getting my daughter interested in actually reading the books. She is intimately involved in the process of illustrating and writing the books. Plus the books are all about her and the familiar things in her life. She is more likely to return to these books now because they are her books. Practice makes progress, so the more I can get her to reread and practice sight words, the better able she will be to apply that in other books.
When you write your own books with your children, be sure to include repetition of sight words, your child’s name, and the vocabulary that s/he uses. Your child will reread these books time and again so s/he will have plenty of practice with those critical words. The project lends itself to teaching reading strategies, too, like using the picture clues to understand the book and figure out unknown words.
Older children also enjoy making their own books. You can try having your older child write the story that goes along with the photos. You could even use the computer to type the words. There could be more than one photo on each page with much more text. You could require your older child to use particular spelling and vocabulary words in the story, too. Use your imagination and have fun making books about your family together!
