This post is by regular contributor Tricia Hogbin of Little Eco Footprints.
I’ve helped my daughter create her own books from when she was only two years old. She’s now five and her little collection of books share the story of many of our most treasured moments and provide a window into the development of her literacy.
Most of her books were created as mementos of family holidays. I give her a blank notebook to draw in at the start of each holiday and once we return home I stick photos of the trip into the book amongst her drawings.
Once she learnt how to write she started to add the words herself, copying from words she’d asked me to write for her.
She then progressed to copying entire sentences (flowers are her favourite way of covering up mistakes).
She’s now learning how to spell and compose sentences herself, so we have books full of delightfully weird spelling.
Her books are far from fancy. Most were frantically finished the night we returned home from holidays so that she could take the book to child care with her the following day. In the beginning I considered the books ‘temporary’ until we had time to create ‘proper’ holiday photo albums. But over time I’ve grown to love these quick books and am glad we didn’t wait for those ‘proper’ photo albums.
Do you help your children to create books?
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Tricia is a nature-loving mum passionate about learning to live better with less. Working in threatened species conservation she has gained an increasing appreciation of the huge impact our consumption habits have on the environment. She hopes to inspire other families to live a little better with less too. Having recently made a 'tree change', you'll now likely find Tricia excitedly playing outdoors with her daughter, adding to her small flock of chooks and pottering in her new garden.
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