Kids have to be engaged all the time in the process of learning as they are always adapting and developing. Here are some fun activities so that they can remain engrossed, have fun and learn at the same time. We’ve created a list of activities that revolve around books infused with the concepts of recycling and journaling.
Teaching kids journaling or scrapbooking is a great exercise for them to keep track of what they are doing, how they are doing and how they can get better. It helps them to self-analyze their productivity in the long run. It also helps us, the adults, to understand how they look at the world and what they could input in the books. More than anything, this can help them to organize their things in a manner that indirectly helps them put their thoughts in sequence and the order of importance.
So, let’s begin with our list of fun activities that can be done throughout the week.
1. Bookbinding
- We have those old books with a few pages in them. Tear them apart carefully and start binding the books together. We’re teaching kids here how to re-use and encouraging them not to waste paper. Here, you can talk to them about how the paper is made, what it is made out of and why it is important to not waste paper.
- If you don't want to use the pages or if you want a bigger journal or book, you could cut out rectangles from cereal boxes or any big boxes and bind these big cardboards together. For this activity, parents have to collect a lot of boxes; you will have colourful designs on your page and blank card paper on the backside. It’s your choice to go crazy and creative on these pages as the rules are not rigid.Again, you could use these cereal boxes as a divider to the first option of making your journal/book with the waste papers.
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The third option is to make handmade paper. This is not an option for younger kids unless there’s an adult to guide them. Kids above 13 years of age can surely go bonkers with how many sheets they want, make them colourful and add flowers from the garden and perfumes to their handmade pages.
2. Making book covers
Now, comes the best part where the child can decorate their book's cover They can just display what their journal is about. The outside has to be summarized in such a way that it gives a gist of what the whole book is about. We will list a few examples that you could use as the heading for your journal.
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My book of Origami
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Documenting the skies
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Animals I’ve seen so far….
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My book of Botanics (flower/plants/trees/shrubs)
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Collage
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The Chef in me
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Textile designs
3. Scrapbooking
Here, after the book is made, the kids can have a journal to themselves. Kids love to collect stamps, some have a leaf collection, others love to collect flowers. For some kids, parents can make a book for them on manners, code of conduct, good habits, etc. And, because we have all become so digital, we can have the kids click pictures on their parent's phones and get the photos printed, like documenting the skies and the clouds. It would surely be a fun activity for the kids. They say that you know about your dream when you are a kid. So, let them run wild on their dreams, see which path they take and what they love to do the most.
4. Bookmarks
Bookmarks can have some motivational quotes on them so why not add a little pop and funk to your journal? Kids can make beautiful bookmarks made out of papers, leaves, some old boxes. They can cut out images from various magazines or paint some beautiful scenery. They can use danglers, glitter, colours and just anything to make it reflect their creative side.
5. Sticker cut-outs
Journals should always have stickers so that you can just pick and stick as per the apt situation. One envelope can be stuck at the end of the book and cut-outs can be dropped in it. Like if there’s a book on ‘Documenting the Skies’, we can have stickers made as per the theme of the book. We can make circle stickers of different colours to show the exact colours of the sky, draw stickers of moon and sun to depict day and night, some stickers depicting the emotion like ‘pretty skies’, ‘Cloudohoic’, ‘Best sky ever!’ some terms that fit right which can be picked and stuck.
You’ve reached the end of the list of activities. Now, just get started; gather up all of the materials lying at home and get going. It’s a big project to work on that is divided into parts; each activity creates a sense of achievement once done and pushes the child to jump from one process to the other in the order of succession. Hope you and your child enjoy creating these fun activities and do share the pictures with us!