Activities: Homemade Picture Book

Move over Mo Willems, baby's makin' her own picture books now.

Submitted by
Kayla Chong

Instead of buying up every duck book ever written (or every butterfly book or dog book or whatever your kid's into this week), help your child make her very own take-along picture book on her favorite subject with this fun activity. Move over Caldecott winners, baby's got a brand-new book.

Miniature photo album or brag book
Several pictures of her favorite things:
Don't have a dozen dog pictures lying around? Cut some out of magazines, newspapers or catalogs, or do a Google image search to find some.
Scissors
Construction paper or scrapbook paper
Glue
Paintbrush

Collect enough images to fill half of your book.
Cut them, mount them on paper (if you want to be fancy) and place them in the album.
Read the new book to your kid. When you get to the end, it's time for the two of you to get crafty together. Tell her that you want her to find more pictures to put in the book.
Have her flip through magazines, look in your photo box, draw some pictures or even shoot some around the house with her and print them up from your digital camera.
Cut the new pictures out together and place them into the book. (Save some blank pages for some new obsessions.)
Finish reading the book together and then put it in your bag so your child can read it on the go.
Next time your kid gets a new obsession, round up some new photos and put them in the book. (And save the cash you'd have spent on a new book for a new pair of shoes!)