Besides occupying the kids between activities, creating a vacation book can also help keep your holiday costs down as well as get the kids thinking about design and creativity. It challenges the kids to really think about the places they go to and the things they see there. Here's how it works.
Materials Needed:
- Computer-preferable a laptop because it is portable
- Printer
- Adhesive sticker sheets
- Markers
- Scissors
- Blank journal
If you can't travel with your computer and printer, it will still work. Just have the kids create their stickers ahead of time or add a notebook to the materials so they can make a list of the items they want to print off of the computer when they get home.
For each activity the kids do they are assigned to design at least one page in their book. Encourage them to look on line at each of the sites they will be visiting before hand. They can open a word document and copy and paste items from the website to their word page. When the page is complete they can print it off and either use it as a full sheet sticker or cut it into several stickers.
A Vacation Book With a Zoo Theme
For example they go to the zoo. After visiting the zoo have them look up the zoo and create a page all about that particular zoo. Then have them look up one or two of their favorite animals they saw while there and do a page or two on information about the animal.
They can add pieces cut out of brochures and labels from bags. Remind them to use the colors from the activities logo.
You can take it even farther by having them decide on some pictures to take that will end up in their books. They need to make sure they are leaving space on their sticker sheet for those photos. Once on the computer, the photos can be copied and pasted to the sticker sheet or applied separately on top of the sticker.
They can even create an animal cage using strips of the sticker sheet and put a picture of the animal they found on line in the cage. You may find if you let them cut up the pictures they will create an image of themselves riding the animal.
When the kids focus on their book, they spend more time thinking of things they can add to their books instead of all of the souvenirs you can buy them.
Remember it doesn't have to be just for the kids. Adults can enjoy making one too.
