I love all the quiet books I see out there but I am not a sewer nor do I have a lot of that on hand. But I do have a laminator, computer, magnets, cricut, markers, Dollar Tree cookie sheet and dry erase markers. I need something to keep my daughter ( J ) busy on our 5 hour car ride coming up, DVD player and leapster won't last that long :( .... So I went to town with my computer, laminator and cricut.
Pages 1-6 - J loves the hidden picture books and I love that Highlights lets you print them off for free
HERE. I just printed about 6 off, cut out the picture and list of items to find, and taped them onto a blank sheet of paper back to back, and ran them through my laminator. Add some dry erase markers and J can do them over and over again.
Page 7-10 - These sheets Came from J's teacher and I just needed to laminate them. Now she can learn/practice drawing a castle, house, dog, and car. Again with some dry erase markers J can do them over and over.
Page 11 - I also got this idea from a worksheet J's teacher gave her for numbers so I went into picnik and made my own you can get a copy
Here and
Here. I printed the set of fish with the numbers on a magnetic sheet (HP magnetic paper) then printed the second set with the dots on regular paper. I then traced (to darken outline), cut out, and laminated the dotted fish and then cut them out again and added a small magnet to the back of each fish. Now she can count the dots and match it to the number (they are not color coated as you can see, my daughter wouldn't learn her numbers if they were)
Page 12-13 - J has a game on her leapster that you take shapes and make different pictures with, so that's where this comes in. Another Picnik template I made, you can get a copy of
Cat and Dog Here and
Here or/and
Boat and Train Here and
Here this time I printed the black outlined shapes onto magnetic sheet paper, I then cut out and laminated the colored shapes, cut them out again and added a small magnet to the back of each one. Now she can use the shapes to make the figures shown.
Page 14 - I have the everyday paper dolls and paper doll dress-up cartridges for my cricut. I bought a large roll of magnetic sheet from Micheal's ($9.99 before my 40% coupon of course). My mom has the larger cricut and the heavy blade for it so I used her cutter to make these. Everything pictured I got out of the one large roll of magnet (there is another croc shoe but I'm not sure were it is at this moment). After I cut it out of the magnet I went back and cut a duplicate out of whatever color paper I wanted the clothes to be. You can either use spray adhesive or really good scrap glue/tape but be sure to get all the edges. (EXAMPLE/TIP: if you adhere the clothing paper to the
white side of the magnet be sure to adhere the doll body paper to the
black side of the magnet. Otherwise they won't stick together when your child dresses them unless you always have it on a magnetic cookie sheet.)
I am still thinking of more ideas for the book if you have any please let me know I would love to hear them.
Finishing touches:
I three hole punched all the laminated sheets, slid the magnetic sheets into a clear sleeve, added some dry erase markers into a binder pencil holder I had on hand and put everything into a binder I also had on hand. I just keep the cookie sheet with it for the paper dolls and I also have her pull out the magnetic sheets (shape and fish) and put those on the cookie sheet for extra magneticness (I know that's not a word but its late and I need to finish so I can go to bed ;) thank you all for reading I hope I inspired you to make a fun travel book. Please link up if you do I would love to see your ideas.
The files that I have links to are for personal use only please!
check out the link parties I participate in
HERE