ABC Collage and Trace Book

I’ve written about M’s little ABC binder before.  He still uses it on a regular basis and enjoys it.

There are two parts to this little book (a 3-ring binder, actually).  First, each letter has a tracing page.   Both upper and lower case letters are on one page, and they each take up about half the page.  It’s so much easier for children to learn to write using large spaces… once they get the movement down, they’ll be able to start making their letters smaller and smaller. These are placed in page protectors and then clipped into the binder.  M uses a dry-erase marker to trace them, then erases them with a small piece of felt.

Secondly, each letter has a collage page that goes beside it, showing things that begin with that letter.  I print out a page of clip art and a page that is blank except for the letters in the middle:

M calls these his “cutting pages” and LOVES them.  He cuts out the pictures and glues them onto the blank letter page.  This isn’t about precise cutting, and he leaves a pretty good border of white around each picture.  The clip art is spaced widely apart to allow for plenty of room.

The finished collage page is then placed in a page protector and added to the binder, next to the tracing page.  He can “read” his abc book by himself and practice tracing the letters any time he wants!

It’s been such a great project for him that I decided to make it available as a printable.   The file download includes the tracing pages for each letter, a page of clip art, and a page to glue the pictures onto after they are cut out.  Each letter has 5 pieces of clip art except for X and Z.  C and G both have two sets of clip art – one for the hard C or G sounds, and one for the soft C or G sounds.

Go here for the download, or click on one of the images above. 
Have a beautiful day! :)

The Art Box – July 19, 2010

I bought a little tote to go along with M’s Art Box last week.  This way we can keep all his usual stuff in one spot and he can add more fun things to the actual box.  In the tote are paintbrushes, glue, pens (which I’ll switch out for colored pencils, pastels, or markers occasionally), scissors, his tiny paint palette, and a small container of collage items like macaroni, pom-poms, etc.

 

I let him pick 3 items from each drawer (there are two craft drawers that are his “art box drawers”.  He chose a bundle of old fabric, cotton balls, a wooden snake with paints, coffee filters, electrical tape, and some stickers.  I picked a variety of papers for him to use.

*Note how messy the box is now that I let M pick the items for it?  There’s no time to pretty it all up before snapping a quick photo. You’ll have to just take my word for what’s in there! :)

 

     

First he made… well, what are these?He was so very proud of them, and told me he had thought up something that no one else had ever made before.  I think he just might be right about that. ;)

 

He had a great time painting his little wooden snake from Michael’s:

 

 

And then he grabbed a piece of dark green velvet (it looks black in the photo), and glued cotton balls all over it.  He told me he had made a “collage of very soft things”:

 

So, yes – his art was interesting this past week, but he enjoyed himself, was excited about it, and probably even learned something – I call that a success.  And I don’t mind that it keeps him busy while I blog either. ;)

If you have a kid's art post, link it up below! Be sure to link back here somewhere in your post.

Have a beautiful day! :)