Paint, Slime, and Glue...OH MY!: ABC Book

Camera, Laminating, and Binding

ABC Book:

Skill: letter recognition, writing, and oral development

The objective of this activity is to create an alphabet book or slideshow with photos from your digital camera. It's a fun activity for early readers and is most appropriate for kids from ages 3-7, although older children may enjoy a more competitive version.

Here's How:

Choose a letter of the alphabet and help your child find objects that begin with that letter.
Take at least one picture for each letter. For a more in-depth project, take pictures of several objects for each letter.
Download the pictures from the camera to your computer.
Either print the pictures or load them into photo editing software.
Create a collage (either on paper or in the photo editing software) with pictures that begin with the letter in question. Don’t forget to include a capital and small version of the letter.
Bind the pages together in a book, or create a digital slideshow. Makingbooks.com has some great instructions for binding books with kids.

Tips:

Avoid turning this into a chore. Spread the activity over several days or weeks. Try doing one letter each day or week.
For older kids, turn it into a scavenger hunt. Give them an allotted amount of time to take a picture of one thing that begins with each letter of the alphabet. Or, give them an allotted time to take as many pictures of different things that begin with the same letter of the alphabet.
Explore your house and backyard with the kids. If they are old enough to identify items that begin with a certain letter, let them lead the way. If they are younger, help them find objects and explain the sounds as you go along. For example, “Here’s an apple. Apple starts with the letter "A." Can you hear the ‘a’ sound?”