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"I recommend to you to take care of the minutes, for the hours will take care of themselves."
~ Philip Dormer Stanhope
So you know I love the Parents As Teachers program, right? I've taken so many of their projects to heart, but my favorite is making Homemade Books. I took this idea and ran with it. It's so much fun, and a wonderful way to help kids learn and feel loved.
There are so many book options: a rolling book, accordion book, photo album book, bound books, books with book rings, plastic combs and index cards. (Is your head spinning yet?) Once you open your mind to the possibilities, you'll start seeing all kinds of books you can make!
The first book I made my daughter was so easy. It's a book called Katie's First Words. An easy way to start is to cut out photos from a magazine of words that your child says. Since my digital camera has become my best creative friend, I decided to take photos of the actual items Katie was talking about. Her first word was “duck,” so I took a photo of the duck she was talking about. I printed the word “duck” on it, and included the age she was when she said it. Her next word was “Daddy,” so I did the same thing for him, and continued to add words as her vocabulary grew.
I printed the photos, inserted them in a mini plastic photo albums, and printed out the words “Katie's First Words” for the cover. It's a great learning tool for Katie, so she can see that items have names, and names and words are made up of letters. And it's a great keepsake for me, because now I have a little photo album of her first words and the age at which she first spoke them.
I've made some other fun books for Katie, and I've started making some for my son, Jackson too. Here are some of them, along with ideas of ones you can make too:
• Cars & Road Signs: Katie loves cars, and started learning all the different types as we drove around. Her favorites are PT Cruisers, VW Beetles and Dodge Rams. I searched the Internet for photos of those cars (and lots of others), printed them on 8.5x11 paper, and inserted them into a binder you might use for a business report. Later I went back and added photos that we took of signs like stop, yield, do not enter, U-turn, and street signs near our house so that Katie could learn where she lives. I've also added store signs, our church sign, bank signs, and restaurants.
• Faces: I took photos of friends and family and typed their names under their photos. Then I printed them on sticker paper (or you could use labels) and put them on index cards. You can buy index cards already spiral bound into notebooks, and the work is done for you. Or you can bind the index cards yourself by punching a hole in them and using book rings to join the index cards together.
• Rolling Books: These are best for babies. They help with crawling and even tummy time. Take a large tin (like a coffee tin), cover it with photos or stickers, and then cover those items with clear contact paper to protect them. For safety, make sure you tape the rough edge of the tin with duct tape so there are no sharp edges. You could also permanently tape the lid on the can. Baby can roll the tin and scoot after it, as they try to see the pictures.
• Matching Books: Use spiral bound index cards, and cut each of them 
in half without taking them out of the spiral. Then find matching stickers (like Elmo or cars or flowers). Put one on the left half of an index card, and one on the right half – but further into the book. The idea is to teach your child the concept of matching, and have her find the matching sticker somewhere else in the book. You could do this with family photos or letters or numbers. Now that Katie is older, I've even done it with upper and lowercase numbers, so she can match them together. I also did it with photos of items, and the words on separate sides so she can start learning sight words.
Finally....a favorite suggestion of mine... hide one of your child's favorite animals throughout the house and take photos of it. Then put those photos in a mini album and it becomes a sort of Where's Waldo? I did this for Katie and her Truman the Tiger stuffed animal. (See him there hiding in the wreath at Christmas time?)
I've also found that anytime Katie needs to memorize something, a homemade book is an easy tool to use. I tried to teach her the Lord's Prayer by memory, but that didn't work very well. However, when I took the prayer apart line by line and put some photos with it in a book, she learned it in just two days. We've also done this with the song The Twelve Days of Christmas , and with photos of family members we have lost – it helps her remember their faces.
Once you start thinking of the possibilities, you'll come up with so many ideas. Some can be more interactive than others, but I think your children will be thrilled to read a book made about them or for them. It's the best of both worlds: your child feels loved, and she's learning valuable reading skills at the same time!
Good luck!
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'Enjoy' Expert, Elizabeth Koziatek is defined by a number of things. She is a wife to Dan, and has been for 12 amazing years. She is a self-proclaimed GRIT (Girl Raised In The South). 
She is a graduate of the University of Missouri (Go Mizzou!). She has worked in television, in ministry, and even in the insurance industry. She is now sharing her creative joy with ExtraordinaryMommy.com by giving you new ways to “ENJOY” time with your children.
Despite all the titles above, the thing that most defines Elizabeth is her job as a mom. She is a mother to two beautiful children – Katie is 4 ½ and Jackson is 9 months. Elizabeth worked outside the home for Katie's first two years and then decided to stay home. Her proudest moments in life have come in the past few years as she has tackled a number of things she never thought she'd be able to do: she survived her first year as a mommy, she managed to nurse both children, and has handled the loss of family members with more grace than she thought possible.
Elizabeth says her favorite thing about being a mommy is the chance it gives her to see the world with new eyes again…it's an opportunity to act like a kid and revel in her children's accomplishments – whether she is watching Katie as she learns to write or the seeing the joy of Jackson's “So Big!”.
This mother of two has found new and amazing ways to be creative with her children. Sometimes she is making toys for them. Sometimes she is creating new games to nurture their learning process. We are excited to share Elizabeth 's creativity with you.
Enjoy Article 1, Enjoy Article 2, Enjoy Article 3
