Custom
Alphabet Book!
What better way to learn the alphabet than with things around your house! Older children can do this with little to no help , and toddlers will love to help find things to photograph. Using things that children are familiar with will help with the letter recognition and sounds that each letter makes. How many times have you been reading an alphabet book and the letter is I and the picture is of an ibis and the child says bird! They are correct but still confused, so using things they know will be fun and educational!
Edit 9-12-08 : I just saw on Crafty Crow that another crafty blog did this same idea, and can I just say theirs was much more polished, check it out here :
- Gather your materials. You will need some card stock or construction paper, a camera, a marker, some pre cut letters, double stick tape, 3 binder rings and a hole punch.
- Start by making a list with the alphabet, and start going around your house to photograph what you can find that starts with each letter.
We found A for apple, D for digger ( surprise surprise!) , H for hat and lots more! Even with a list I ended up with 3 things for the letter s ! - After you have found all your letter objects upload the photos to a photo site and have them sent to your house if you want to wait, or to a local store like Walgreens or Target to pick up that same day!
- Now we make the book! I used construction paper and although I didn’t choose to have my son decorate the pages, this would be a fun added step. Whether you decorate the pages or not here is where we add the letters. I used double stick tape to add the letter .
- Add the label –
I used a random old 4×6 picture to estimate where the photograph would go so I could write the label with enough room. I used both sides or each paper. - Next punch three holes in the left side of the pages.
- Add the binder rings.
- Go pick up the pictures at the store, and try not to buy too many other things while there , I got a cute top for $4 !
- Add the photographs. You can cut them out, or decorate the book any way you want.
- Enjoy your very own Alphabet book!
I absolutely LOVE this idea. I’m adding it to my list of things to do. Thanks!
This is great idea! I will definately be making this one for my girls. Thank you for all of your wonderful ideas!
I just started homeschooling my girls (just for this year). And I stumbled across your blog. I hope you dont mind me using some of your ideas. I think we are going to do the egg carton counting activity today! What great ideas you have!
Thanks! I have been meaning to do this forever!
Sarah- feel free to use everything, it’s why we’re here!
THat’s great! And a great version of scrapbooking your home 🙂
wow wow wow i am just loving this “blog World” so many great Ideas….. i even start feeling that i lack time to catch up with all this!!!!
amazing!!
Just wondering what word you used for Q?
I am stumped with that one….
I used Queen ! I took a picture of a Canadian coin .
Such a great idea, and the letters become more meaningful for the kids because of using items they see around the house everyday! For older ones, they would also be able to help find items for each letter. 🙂 Thanks a bunch!
My 3 year old loves taking photos so for Christmas I got her to take photos of things and we made flash cards for her friends as gifts. They turned out great.
I had Q for quarters.
Ah! Thats not ur little guy with the shaved head is it?
I’m so happy to have found your website!!! I have been hoping to do some more structured things with my little ones. We’ve been doing a lot of running amuck lately. This helps so much!!!
Too funny, we just started a similar book on Friday! I am going to post about it tomorrow.
Always loving your ideas! Thank you!
I enjoyed making an alphabet book with my preschooler. We did a food for each letter and she cut out pictures from magazines, grocery adds, etc. She enjoyed pretending this was a menu and would have me order from her ABC book. Your ABC book looks great- colorful and eye-appealing for your little one!
Jen
Creative and Curious Kids!
I love the projects you post here. I need to make sure the materials are ready before inviting the kids to art time, like you reminded in this post. I am working with two three-year-olds and they did not have the attention span for the ABC picture book. Did you do this over a period of days? Did your child take the pictures or did you do them? We did about eight letters but they don’t know what letter goes with what object so this was pretty hard. Any suggestions?
I found your page through another friend who mentioned you. I love your site! What creative ideas!
Yes yes projects like this our child parent and tot one need adult help , and by help I mean you do much of it if your child is still little, it’s a big activity and in a class I would spread it out over days and days. With a one on one ratio it can be done over 2. My son was very very into it but he was all about letters then, now if I tried I would probably only have his help , for a few letters. So my tips for a class would be to have the children each color one or 2 pages , then doing it as a teacher table activity you can ask them to find something at home that begins with an assigned letter, you take the picture then as a class put it together- each child will know at least the one letter / object pair that they were assigned, and all the peers will benefit from their knowledge.
Did that make sense?
We did this project with our toddler class, they loved it. We let them pick out the objects that began with that sound so they can better understand the relation between the letter and different objects. Parents are very pleased with the outcome so far. Thank you for a great idea.
Yay !