An interesting, high-quality little book can be made with your own hands. If the product is intended for children under 3 years old, it is usually done only by the mother or teacher. And older boys and girls can already take part in the creation of such an unusual book themselves.
For younger preschool age
A baby book, which is quite easy to make with your own hands, is most often intended for children aged 3-4 years. Such educational aids are actively used in kindergarten. But it is also relevant for parents to use them at home. Thanks to bright colorful pictures, they perfectly captivate children, hold their attention, and arouse interest. As a result, useful activities turn into a game.
Topics and information content
To captivate a child of 3-4 years, it is important to choose the right topics for a book created with your own hands. Most of all, children are attracted to fairy tales and cartoons. Thematic direction of the book can be chosen one work or a whole group of different ones.
For example, little books on the theme of popular Russian fairy tales are interesting. Another option is to take the child's favorite cartoon and use only it for the design. Today, parents and educators often choose the following cartoons as the main theme of little books: "BabyRiki", "Three Cats", "Fixies", "Paw Patrol", "Blue Tractor", "Barboskins". Another interesting option is to come up with a cartoon or fairy tale yourself.
Here you don't need to be able to draw perfectly and write long complex plots. It's enough to come up with a couple of funny characters and a simple story about them. The fairy tale will be individual, involving the child himself, who plans to study with it.
In addition to cartoons and fairy tales, you can use many other themes for baby books. The table will tell you which ones.
| Topics | Explanation |
| Animals | You can make the animal theme general or tell in the book only about one direction. For example, about pets, about forest dwellers, zoo dwellers. If the kid has his own pet, it is relevant to make it the main character and theme of the book. |
| Seasons of the year | The theme allows you to study the seasons well, the features of each. When creating such books for little girls, you can even use natural materials. For example, dry leaves, acorns, dried rowan. |
| Plants, birds, sea, dinosaurs | Any theme of living nature can be made the main one in a baby book. It is advisable to choose one that the child himself is interested in. |
| Food | If you make the main theme of the book products and dishes, this will allow you to introduce your child to healthy and unhealthy food. And also to understand how important food is for the body, how it affects it, why it is necessary to have breakfast and to indulge in sweets less. |
| Hospital, fire station, garage, library | Using the main theme for a baby book, you can tell your child about different moments of life, professions. Here, you should also focus on the interests of the baby at a specific time. |
| Family | If you plan to study the baby book at home, its main theme can be the child's family. Then real photos of the baby and his relatives will be used for it. For studying in kindergarten, it is better to simply talk about the family in general, explain what this or that relative is called. Here you can talk about warmth and sincerity, about love between relatives and other important things. |
Selection of texts
A small book, which can be made entirely by hand, is filled with many texts. The creator himself decides which ones to choose. It also depends on the main topic.
The easiest option is to use one short fairy tale. Then it will be the main text in the book. All that remains is to select suitable pictures and interesting tasks. For example, you can draw or stick the characters described in the story separately and ask questions for reflection next to them: Who is depicted in the picture? Was he in the fairy tale? Is he a good or an evil character? Did the reader like him?
Another interesting option is to make a fairy tale the main one, and additionally select thematic poems, riddles, proverbs for it. For example, for "Turnip" - proverbs about this vegetable ("Cheaper than steamed turnip", "The house is dirty - even sow turnips"). After each proverb can be analyzed with the baby, their meaning explained.
This principle can be applied to any topic. For example, for "Animals" select thematic fairy tales, short stories, riddles, interesting facts.
A selection of pictures
Today, the process of selecting pictures is very simple for both educators and parents. If the main theme of the baby book is planned to be a fairy tale or a cartoon, then the illustrations can be taken from there. The easiest option is to turn on the cartoon on the computer, "cut" suitable frames, and then simply print them. It is even more convenient to use pages from old books.
Design
To make a baby book for children aged 3-4 years, you need:
- Cut a sheet of cardboard in half and fold each piece in half.
- Iron the fold to make it as even as possible.
- Place the sheets together and make 2 holes in the middle for the ribbon.
- Securely fasten the workpiece.
- Fill the pages with pictures and texts.
- Add decorations such as beads, stickers, appliques.
How to use
Children aged 3-4 can use the baby book repeatedly. They are used as developmental aids in kindergarten and at home. An adult should be with the baby during the lessons. He helps to understand the tasks, find answers to questions, read all the texts.
For middle preschool age
A baby book (you can make it yourself quite quickly) can be adapted for children of middle preschool age. This is 4-5 years old. For older children, you need to devote more time to filling and decorating the product. They can quickly get bored with a simple little book without surprises and secrets.
Topics and information content
For children aged 4-5, you can also make little books on the theme of fairy tales and cartoons. But these should already be works adapted for an older age. For example, cartoons-series, stories about superheroes, princesses. A book on the theme of Disney characters will be interesting. These can be princes or princesses, animals and insects, birds and sea creatures.
If the books are made thematic, a great option would be to cut them out in unusual shapes. For example, in the form of vegetables, fruits, sweets, fairy tale characters and cartoons.
At 4-5 years old, you can already start to gradually study letters and numbers. It is also relevant to make small books on these topics. For example, dedicate one of them to the alphabet. To prevent the book from being too big, you can divide it into several parts at once. Dedicate the first only to vowels, the second - to consonants.
An interesting option is to make a book about the letters that the child does not pronounce. For help in this process, you will have to turn to a speech therapist. It is especially easy to do this in a kindergarten. Then it will be easier and more interesting to work with problem letters and sounds. Speech therapy lessons can be turned into a game.
You can make a separate book for each letter. For example, dedicate the first one to the letter A. Inside, publish words for this letter, funny stories about it, riddles, poems and other similar material. An interesting option is to invite the child to come up with a fairy tale about A, and leave hints on the pages of the book on how to do it easier.
If the product is created personally for a child, its main theme can be a favorite movie, fairy tale, cartoon, boy or girl character. The resulting book will be an excellent gift option. If the child has a favorite character, it will be relevant to tell as much information about him as possible on its pages. For example, the history of creation, everything about his family. Or even independently come up with new adventures of a favorite character.
Selection of texts
The longest process in creating such a book is selecting texts.
They must meet several requirements at once:
- be age appropriate;
- be appropriate to the topic;
- fit true to size.
You shouldn't use too long texts. It's hard to fit them on the pages of a small book. You have to make the font size much smaller. Then the texts don't look very attractive and it becomes difficult to read them.
Various fairy tales, proverbs and sayings are good for baby books. You can dilute the texts with short riddles and jokes. It is interesting to compose texts for the product together with 4-5 year old children.
For example, invent stories, comics, fairy tales. If the theme of the book is the child's favorite character, it is worth asking the boy or girl to independently invent a continuation of his adventures. A parent or teacher can do the same. Then the product will become a real surprise gift for the little reader.
Today, you can find most popular fairy tales, stories, and proverbs on the Internet. It is convenient to collect them together, arrange them on a sheet of paper in several lines, and print them out. You can even do this in the form of "bubbles" - conversations based on the comic book principle. Then the texts can be combined with the characters of the book. They will ask the reader questions, "communicate" with him during the reading and classes.
A selection of pictures
The easiest option is to simply buy or print sheets of stickers that match the theme. This trick will significantly speed up the process of decorating the book. Let the stickers be large at once - the basis of some pages and small ones (they are suitable for decoration, additions). You will just need to choose suitable places for the pictures on the pages of the miniature book and carefully stick them on. You can do this together with your child.
Another simple option is to cut up an old magazine, use postcards. Today in stores you can find printed products on various topics.
If possible, the necessary pictures can be printed at a printing house. For the design of a baby book of some themes, photographs are also suitable. For example, if the product tells about life in a kindergarten, about a child's home, about the area, the city in which he lives. True, the photographs will have to be made in a reduced format, not a standard one. And preferably on thinner paper.
Design
When decorating a baby book, it is worth turning on your imagination. You can experiment with the shape of the product, the number of pages in it, and decorations.
When making a book you should:
- Choose its shape. It can be a silhouette of your favorite character, a flower, a leaf, a vegetable, a fruit, a heart.
- Select the material that will fill the book. Print out the necessary texts and pictures, cut them out.
- Glue the parts of the product prepared in the previous step onto its pages.
- Decorate the book with felt-tip pens or pencils. If the artist does not have artistic skills, stickers or ready-made appliques can be used here.
It is important to carefully secure all the parts of the product. This is done with tape, ribbons, threads. At 4-5 years old, children are extremely active and are unlikely to carefully turn the pages of the product. Therefore, it should be protected from rapid damage in all possible ways.
How to use
A hand-made miniature book can be used for games and activities. Everything depends on its main theme. If it is a speech therapy option, it can be used for classes with a specialist.
The finished product is convenient to take with you on a long journey. Then the child will be able to study the book for some time, forgetting about boredom. You will get both useful activities and entertainment at once.
The book can be used many times. If the child gets tired of it, it is worth putting the product out of sight for a while. And then start working with it again.
For senior preschool age
A baby book (it is also relevant to make it yourself for children aged 5-7) can be actively used in the senior group of a kindergarten. It is quite difficult to hold the attention of boys and girls of this age, so you will have to work especially hard on the content of the product.
Topics and information content
It can be difficult to find interesting topics for children over 5 years old. All the basic ones (nature, food, seasons, animals) have already been studied by this age. Therefore, the master has to carefully select new exciting ones. Modern cartoons, fairy tales and TV series come to his aid.
To interest or captivate a child, you can connect the theme of a baby book with a cartoon that has just been released. Then the first task in it can be to get acquainted with the new product. In this case, it is relevant to fill the pages of the book with frames from the cartoon, images of the character, labyrinths with it and other tasks. At the end, it will be appropriate to ask questions about it, trying to make them educational.
Another popular topic is school. At the age of 5-6, it may well be the main one. In the senior group of kindergarten, children are actively preparing for the first grade. Therefore, a small book can be devoted to studying letters, numbers, even the basic principles of addition and subtraction.
For example, a book on the topic of reading will be interesting. In it, you can arrange popular short fairy tales by syllables, letters in different forms. It is relevant to make tasks - to find capital vowels/consonants in pictures, in labyrinths. Searching for symbols of different fonts perfectly develops attentiveness.
The tasks can be associated with reading the simplest syllables, adding numbers, searching for vowels and consonants. The result will be an exciting game and learning at the same time.
If the child has a special hobby, it is also appropriate to make it the main theme of the baby book. Perhaps he is into wrestling, swimming, playing football, collecting superheroes, dolls. Or he just dreams of becoming a doctor, astronaut, engineer. All these features can be interestingly used in the product. If the baby book tells about the child's dream, his own stylized photo on the cover looks funny.
A very popular topic for baby books today is a child's emotions. Psychologists advise starting to study it in kindergarten. Together with a parent or teacher, a child will be able to learn to recognize their emotions, will know how to cope with them, how to express them ecologically.
Selection of texts
The texts for the book depend on its subject. So, for a teaching aid with the alphabet, you can choose poems about letters, reading.
For example:
Letter by letter, and the word is ready.
I read as if I were learning it again.
I'm not used to reading from point to point,
It's like a tongue walking over bumps.
***
Hard sign and soft sign too,
How similar two droplets are,
These letters are like two brothers,
Don't confuse them, guys.
Such simple poems will help to get acquainted with letters and the simplest rules of the Russian language. In the future, they will be useful to the child at school.
The same stories, fairy tales, riddles, proverbs will be relevant. If the main theme of the baby book is the child's dream profession, you can tell its history on the pages, talk about its importance, all the pros and cons. The kid will understand what his favorite doctor does, how he helps people. It will be appropriate to tell how to get the desired profession, what difficulties will have to be faced on the way.
A selection of pictures
At the age of 5-7 years, the child already pays attention to the quality of the pictures. You need to try to choose bright, clear, saturated ones. Books with such illustrations will attract the baby, will be interesting to him.
To avoid fiddling around with pictures, you can buy suitable stickers, cut up an old book. Another option is to use postcards, magazines. Sometimes you can even find suitable illustrations in free advertising leaflets.
To make the little book look more interesting and neat, all the pictures inside it should be outlined with a marker or felt-tip pen. You can even sprinkle the illustrations around with glitter, decorate them with other suitable materials.
If you have old coloring books at home, they will also be suitable for decorating the product. Especially if the pictures in them are colored neatly and in suitable colors. Blank pages from coloring books will also come in handy.
Design
To make a little book, you will need to prepare: colored cardboard, snow-white sheets of paper (A4 format), prepared pictures, sheets of paper with text, glue, scissors.
During the manufacturing process you need to:
- Make pages of the desired size. To do this, fold colored or white sheets in half lengthwise and carefully cut along the fold line.
- The edges of the blanks from the previous step are coated with glue and joined. The number of sheets is determined depending on the desired thickness of the future book.
- The resulting long piece of paper is folded like an accordion.
- For the cover, choose colored cardboard or a sheet with photos of the child. Cut off a piece of the required size.
- The edges of the cover are coated with glue and it is put into place.
- Desired pictures are cut out from prepared magazines, postcards, and advertising leaflets. They are distributed across the pages. Texts are placed (glued or written) nearby.
The resulting book needs to be given time to lie down so that all its parts stick together well and are securely connected.
How to use
The finished and completely dry book can be used for games and activities. Such products are convenient for kindergarten. But they are great for studying at home. With them, the child will be interested and excited to learn new topics.
First, you should start studying the baby book together with your child. And only then can you give it to your child to read on his own. The baby book is reusable. It can be used repeatedly.
You can make a little book with your own hands for children of different ages. You just need to choose a theme for the product, pictures, texts and carefully combine them, fasten them.
Video about the baby book
DIY baby book: