some self-made books for the kiddos

We had to update one of the books we made at preschool this year since Bee can count to 29 now! I thought I'd share a few of the books we made this year. These books are really great because we made them together and used simple text, used easy to read fonts (we used dnelian) and added lots of pictures of the kid's own itmes. They are great practice for new and emerging readers since they had some ownership in creating them. We read ours over and over and Bee 'reads' them to me too. I keep them in a basket on the end table so they are easy to get to.

First, the one we were updating this evening is a fun one called "I Can..." It has a wide range of skills and could be tailored to your child level. Here are the pages we included: I can say my full name, I can find my name (among a list of all the kids names), I can write my name, I can know my birthday, I can color, I can name my colors (there are boxes with lots of colors), I can count, I can recognize my numbers (list of numbers 1-20), I can glue, I can paint, I can use scissors, I can name my shapes (pictures of several shapes), I can play- I can build a tower- I can play on the playground- I can play nicely with my friends, I can move my body- climb-jump-skip-run-gallop-walk, I can name my body parts (list of lots of body parts), I can say my alaphabet, I can recognize my letters, I can help dress myself- I can put on my shoes- I can put on my jacket- I can pull up my undies- I can put on my shirt, I can learn and play with my friends. We did several pages at preschool and then encouraged the parents to keep working on them at home.

There is a "My Colors" book. Each week for the first several weeks we had a color as a focus. We wore that color to school and brought an item from home that was that color. Miss Sarah and I took pictures of the students and their items. We also had them paint their hand on a sheet of that color of paper. We then complied and binded those pages.

We made a number book. After colors, we had numbers as a focus. The kids brought in a certain number of an item from home in their number bag. They could choose whatever item they wanted. We photographed them and compiled books. Kids brough all kinds of thigs, blocks, toy frogs, cars, crayons, books, etc.

When we focused on numbers, we also made a page for another book. The page had the number at the top in numerical formet and then was blank with a sentence at the bottom that said, "# (spelled out)_____ are _________________." The theme for the week was plugged in the first slot, like: "Seven frogs are _______" or "Fifteen pets are______." Then the kids glued on the correct number of that picture on the page and then were able to add crayon drawings if they wanted. We had them finish the sentence and we recorded that for them. Lou had everypage read " # ___ are dancing." Everything was dancing!