Making a Back-to-School Scrapbook with your Child

Summer is coming to a close, and the anticipation of back to school is just around the corner.  For children and parents, this brings up feelings of both excitement and nervousness.  Creating a “Back-to-School Scrapbook” with your child can help both of you deal with these feelings and assist with preparing your child with this new transition.  Your scrapbook creation can be made into a summer-long project, with a large portion of it being child-directed.  The scrapbook will be a concrete tool that will provide a visual for your child about the upcoming exciting changes that they are about to experience.

Things to Keep in Mind:

• Age of your child
• Interests of your child
• Attention span

Mini Field Trips:

• Go to the dollar store to pick out an album and scrapbooking supplies
• Visit to the school, classroom, and teacher
• Go shopping for a knapsack, snack box, clothes

Pages to Include:

• The school & teacher
• Shopping for supplies
• Wearing the new school attire
• Calendar to mark off the days until the start of school
• Picture schedules of what will happen every morning to get ready to go to school and what the routine will be at school (story, play, snack time etc.)
• Activities that the child may participate in at school
  • Art, water & sand play, playdough, music, dramatic play, books, building toys
  • Friends that the child imagines they will meet
  • What they imagine their first day might be like
  • A “Back to School” Yearly Tradition

Materials:

• Photo album, scrapbook
• Variety of scrapbooking papers, stickers, embellishments
• Some type of adhesive (glue, photomounts)
• Pictures – photographs or magazine

Useful Websites:

Common Sense Parenting – http://www.parenting.org
Canadian Parents – http://www.canadianparents.com/grade-schoolers
Scrapbooking Supplies Checklist – http://www.trustyguides.com/scrapbooking.html

The scrapbook that you and your child have created will be an amazing conversation starter during the weeks leading up to your child starting school.  Perhaps you and your child can look at it every evening before your child goes to bed, and different school activities can be talked about.  Or maybe it can be pulled out when your child voices concerns over certain new activities.  Enjoy the quality time spent with your child being creative together and preparing for the next milestone in their life.  Perhaps it could turn into a yearly summer project?

Written by Heidi Payne, ECE Resource Centre Librarian

Rock Paperweights

Make paperweights out of rocks! 

- Begin by having each child find a rock. 
- Scrub the rock clean with soap and water.
- Decorate the rock by painting a picture on it.

This is a great project to make for either Mother’s or Father’s Day.

Make Your Own Toys

Here are some ideas for making your own toys just in time for the holidays! 

Feel and Tell Box
Cut two identical 2” squares of different textured materials such as velvet, corduroy, rug samples, sandpaper.  Glue one square to the top of a shoe box.  Glue the other square to a piece of cardboard and place inside the box.  At the end of the she shoe box, cut a circle large enough for a child’s hand to reach in.  The child then reaches in to feel a square and tries to match it to the lid without looking.  The square can be removed from the box to see if the correct match is made or to make the game easier for small children.

Box Camera
Decorate a small box to look like a camera.  A button can be used for the lens, yarn for the camera strap, and a red circle for the ‘on’ button.  Cut a slit in the top of the box so that your ‘photos’ can be placed inside.  ‘Photos’ can be magazine cut-outs, child’s drawings, or even real photos of your child.  The child then takes the picture, counts to ten, and pulls out the ‘photo’.

Scoop Catch
Wash fabric softener bottle thoroughly and cut off the bottom on an angle.  Decorate the scoop.  Child grasps the scoop using bottle handle and tries to catch a ball.  Younger children can roll the ball back and forth to each other with the scoops.

Flutter Butterfly

To make pretty monarchs, flatten a coffee filter into a circle, then paint with markers and spray them with water.  Once dry, clip the centre with a hinged clothespin.

Let’s Make Toys – Spoon Puppets

 

Materials:

Wooden, plastic or metal spoons

Fabric

Pipe cleaners

Paper

Felt

Yarn scraps

Paint

Markers

Glue

 

Paint, glue or draw basic features such as mouth, eyes, and hair onto spoon.  Add a hat if you wish.

 

Make simple clothes from a circle of fabric with a hole cut in the middle for the spoon to slip through.

 

Add arms made from pipe cleaners or paper.

 

Make a puppet or a family of puppets for story telling!

Sidewalk Chalk

 

½ cup Plaster of Paris

¼ cup water (for coloured chalk, add food colouring to water)

 

·        In a small container (margarine tub) put Plaster of Paris.

·        Add water – DO NOT MIX YET!

·        With masking tape, cover up one end of a toilet paper roll.

·        Stir mixture into a soupy consistency.

·        With a spatula, put half of the mixture into the toilet roll.

·        Tap down the toilet roll to release air bubbles.

·        Pour the rest of the mixture into the toilet roll.

·        Tap down again to release the rest of the bubbles.

·        Let stand for 24 hours.

·        Tear off the toilet roll and enjoy!

Fall Activities

 

A Walk on the Wild Side

What a terrific time to shuffle through dry leaves and watch autumn unfold during a walk in the woods or around the block.  Nature will provide collectibles that can be used in the following ways:

 

·           Dip leaves, feathers, evergreen sprigs, etc. in paint, and then press onto paper.

·           Place a leaf or two under paper, rub the top of the paper with a crayon to see the leaves appear magically.

·           Press leaves between sheets of wax paper placed under a heavy book.  Preserve leaves permanently by covering with clear Mac Tac.  Cut around leaves, leaving 1/16 “ Mac Tac around edges.  Hang these in a window to twirl and sparkle in the sunlight.

·           Adopt an abandoned spider web by sprinkling gently with talcum powder and then lifting by placing a sheet of black construction paper underneath.

 

Kid-Art Portfolio

Help your child prepare an envelope to save art treasures.  You will need Bristol board (18” x 24”), stickers, markers, stapler or masking tape.  Place Bristol board with 18” at top and bottom. Fold lower edge up 7”, crease it; then tape or staple the sides to form a pocket.  Fold down 6” to form a flap.  Decorate as you wish, then fill with wonderful projects made at home or school.

 

Masks

Bases for masks can be paper plates (1/2 plates), brown paper bags, construction paper, cardboard shapes, and paper mache.  Supply your child with a large variety of materials, and let them create on their own.  Material ideas include wool, cotton balls, scrap material, scrap paper, crepe paper, sparkles, toilet paper rolls, wrapping paper, macaroni, rice, leaves, sticks, string, markers, pastels, stickers, etc.  Remember for Halloween, the safest mask is face paint.

 

Cookie Decorating

Let children decorate large cookies.  Supply a couple of colours of icing (possibly a cream cheese icing if you want to reduce the sugar) and granulated sugar or other decorative edibles.

Rattle, Bang, Hum

Music Makers for Inside or Out!

 

Toddlers enjoy music with a strong and definite beat.  If you supply them with inexpensive homemade instruments they will express rhythms that they hear in percussion repetition of sounds as well as creative body movement.  No need for a purchased rhythm band set when all that is needed is a little ingenuity and household items.  Older preschoolers, with assistance, will take an active role in the creation of the following “down home” instruments.

 

Cymbals – Try two flat pot lids (a definite ear ringer).

Tympana – Use wooden spoons for tapping assorted canned goods or hanging, metal pie tins.

Maracas – Partially fill plastic drink bottles with rice, dried peas, beans, small pasta, etc.  Hot glue or tape the twist caps securely to the bottle to prevent opening.  A sound matching game results from creating pairs of similarly filled bottles.  Shake and match!

Harmonica – Still popular is the large comb covered with a sheet of waxed paper which vibrates when blown with the mouth slightly open.

Kazoo – Stretch a piece of waxed paper over one end of a toilet paper roll and secure with an elastic band.  Pierce the paper several times with a pin.  Blow and hum at the same times into the open end of the tube to create a vibrating, humming melody.

Xylophone – Use different lengths of copper tubing, steel pipe or wooden doweling (thick).  Lay these side by side on top of a piece of foam rubber.  Use a wooden spoon to tap out a lively tune.  For chimes, hang the lengths from a frame using strong fishing line.

Tom Tom Drum – Remove both ends from a 48oz juice can (hammer edges flat, then tape for safety).  Cut two larger circles out of old, rubber tubing allowing them to overlap the edges of the can.  Lace the rubber ends together using a leather shoe lace threaded through holes that have been punched around the edge of circles.

Guitar – Use a discarded shoe box or tissue box.  Stretch 6 or more coloured elastic bands of varying sizes around the box.  Pluck with fingers for that “get down” sound.

 

Don’t hesitate to join in, sing along and dance to the antics of this young performing artist.  Provide a full range of background music with toe-tapping, shake-it-up tempos that both you and your child(ren) will enjoy.  Don’t forget to record this early musician.  The tapes may not be award winners but certainly will be collectors’ items.

 

Written by Liz Hicks, Early Years Team Leader