Foster your children's interest in books and reading while helping them preserve highlights of a spring vacation or outing. With this "vacation read-aloud book," even kids who are too young to read can make their own storybooks.
Set out souvenirs that your children collected from the family trip or outing and help them organize the items in groupings such as outdoor sights and activities, museum visits, sports events, hotels and restaurants, etc. Children may use glue or tape to affix each grouping onto a sheet of art or construction paper and then label the page.Next, get out a tape recorder and encourage the children to tell a story about the trip, mentioning each souvenir and what they remember about that part of the trip. You can operate the "record" button, stopping when necessary for kids to collect their thoughts. After one grouping has been covered, add a pause before moving on to the next page.
When you've finished recording, children might enjoy adding their own drawings of vacation sights to the pages of souvenirs. Punch holes in the sheets of paper and tie them together with ribbon or yarn to complete the book. As you play the taped narration, the whole family will enjoy turning pages and reliving the great memories.
This activity was adapted from the just released "Donna Erickson's Travel Fun Book" (Augsburg Publishing; 1997).