Mini-Books Can Inspire Learning

QUOTE FOR TODAY

There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns.

Edward de Bono

My daughter and I make mini-books a lot. We have made mini-books of fruit, vegetables, family, and about her journey as a preschooler. We got to the library about twice a month to get books. We have the option of checking out 50 books maximum, but we only get about seven.

Mini-books are small books that are made to help reading. There are very few words on the page and usually are repetitious. I don't use top-notched materials.

Materials:

construction paper (cut in half if using anything above legal size)
coloring pages from books, magazines, or websites
glue
scissors
marker
crayons (so the kids can color the pages if using blank coloring pages)

Normally there's a theme depending on what you are using... Here's a word list of Words To Introduce to Preschool-aged Children. My daughter's teacher gave me this list. It is one she uses.

a, and, away, big, blue, can, come, down, find, for, funny, go, help, here, I, in, is, it, jump, little, look, make, me, my, not, one, play, red, run, said, see, the, three, to, two, up, we, where, yellow, you

In our mini-books, we try to incorporate these words in them. Some ways you can introduce these words and mini-books is simple...Just Do It. Gather the supplies listed above and use your imagination. Get creative!

Take a few of these words (one, two, three, red, blue, red, yellow, ball, Balls). Come up with a nice title and write it big with a marker. Here's an example: Balls. On page one you can say: One red ball, One yellow ball, One blue ball. On page two you can say: Two red balls, Two yellow balls, Two blue balls. On page three you can say: Three red balls, Three yellow balls, Three blue balls. On page four you can say I can count how many balls there are. (Have all three colored balls and in range of 1 to 3 balls). Make sure on all pages you have those number balls on the page and in those colors)

I will add how to do more mini-books later. I have a lot of them in mind.