Hi there! Happy Friday! Today I have a fun and relatively easy project to create for your kids. My family and I live in Illinois, while all of our extended family lives in Wisconsin, most up to 7 hours away. We also have family in Georgia. This means my kids don't get to see their grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins very often. I decided to create a little game for my daughter that could meet two objectives. First, it would help her remember the names of all the faraway family members. Second, it would reinforce her knowledge of letters and letter sounds. There are basically two steps to creating this project.
Family Cards
I have to admit, the family cards I made were super simple, and thanks to my resources, took me very little time to create. I used my Canon Selphy printer to print out images of all our family. I love this printer because I can select the "4-up" option, and it will automatically print four images on a single 4x6 photo. If you do not own a Selphy, you may need to do a little work in Photoshop or just crop down larger photos. After I used my trimmer to cut them all apart, I adhered each photo to a blank Project Life journaling card. The photos fit perfectly. That's it. I told you...super simple!
Alphabet Pockets
I purchased a set of generic library pockets from a local educational store. I used a bunch of papers from my stash to decorate them up a bit and included a single letter on each. I kept it simple and didn't spend a ton of time on each one, because let's face it, a three-year old would be playing with them...they are bound to get a little destroyed! ;) If you wanted to keep it even easier, you could simply write a letter on each pocket!
The Game
My daughter and I reviewed the names of everyone on the cards. Then I had her figure out what letter of the alphabet each name started with. She already uses a lot of name association with her letters ("J is for Justin") so this was a perfect next step. Once she decided upon the first letter, she put the card in the appropriate pocket. The Project Life cards just happen to fit perfectly into the library pockets!
I have to say, I was a little surprised at what a hit this game was with my daughter. She was so excited to see all her family members. She loved it immediately! We had a little trouble deciding if the grandparents should reside in the "g" pocket for "grandma/grandpa" or the pocket for the first letter of their first name. She decided we should go with the first name, which was probably a good thing or the "g" pocket would have been stuffed!
All on her own, she also started playing a matching game with the family cards, matching same family siblings and spouses to one another. I was amazed at all the different combinations she eventually came up with. It really helped her understand the relationships between all our family members - things like who mommy's brother, who is daddy's grandma, who is cousin C's mom, etc. I did have to laugh when she mixed up the great grandparent couples based on her oh-so-scientific method of who had the whitest hair. ;) I made the game a couple of weeks ago, and she continues to play it at least once a day. As predicted, it already looks, though not destroyed, very loved!
Let me know if you have any questions! Thanks for stopping by, and have a great weekend!
