Product reviews, parenting articles, and advice for first-time moms from the experiences of real-life mommies.

Although I can’t claim the original idea as my own (I think I read it on a Fisher Price email newsletter), I just had to share about one of the latest things that Kate and I have been working on together. It’s an ABC book of her own. And it hasn’t cost us a dime!

I found an old, empty spiral journal that was just the right size for a preschooler (about 5″ x 5″) in a box of junk we were about to get rid of. You could also use a pad of paper, a notebook, or even just some construction paper folded in half and stapled down the middle. We printed her letters (upper and lower case) together, one on each page. Since then we’ve been having a blast filling each page with pictures of items that start with that letter. We’ve gotten creative over the past few weeks and have cut things out of anything we can get our hands on!

We’ve used stickers and cut pictures out of old coloring books, old catalogs (Pottery Barn Kids still comes in the mail every month), grocery store fliers, and junk mail. I’m just now even remembering that one of the suggestions was to cut out photos of the special people in your life and put each them on the page for the first letter of their name. I have to say that it’s been a lot of fun hunting for objects to put in her book that are unique. I even have found myself excitedly opening the mailbox hoping for junk mail with new pictures. We’re still looking for several pages to get filled (Q and X are REAL doozies), but most of her pages are getting pretty full.

There are so many great things that have come out of this project. The best thing?? We are spending quality time together doing something that SHE enjoys and gets to direct. I try to make sure to let HER decide what gets cut out, what colors we use, which page each item goes on and where it gets placed on the page, etc… I also let her decide when we’re done working on it for the day. Usually by the time we’re done, she and I are having a wonderful time together and it leads to other activities we do together, too. All of this is a wonderful thing since our different personalities tend to conflict and so much of our interaction tends to be me calling the shots (I am the mom afterall) – it’s nice to have a break from that.

The next thing that I’m loving about the project is how much she’s learning. Sure, she’s learning her letters (and I’m so proud of HER… an me… for that), and she’s learning what each letter sounds like, she’s also learning other things. She’s learning how to use scissors (that’s a big one for me since I’m always scared she’s going to hurt herself), she’s learning how to use tape (she actually grabbed the tape from me today and looped it and put it on the back of her picture all by herself!), she’s learning how to use space and move things so that they don’t overlap, she’s even learning patience as I have to get up frequently to help Ethan or Karis with other things.

Lastly, she’s learning about ownership and taking pride in her work. She LOVES her book because it’s HER book. She picked out the colors for each letter. She picked out the pictures on each page. And she picked out where to put each picture. The last time we worked on the book together, she took it to bed with her and put it on top of her headboard for safekeeping. And everytime we work on it, she just HAS to show it off to Daddy as soon as he walks in the door after work.

Here’s the great thing. Today, she told me we needed to start collecting pictures for Ethan’s book. When I told her that Ethan didn’t have a book, she was adamant that we start one for him soon. And just to prove her point, she cut out a few extra pictures and taped them to a piece of paper for him to keep in his room until we start a book for him! What a GREAT big sister!