Besides raiding the fridge and climbing everything in sight, my daughter has started getting into imaginary play lately. Since she's the oldest, I've tried to be creative about some things I can make for her. Last month it was a gas can for her cozy coupe car, and this week I took a stab at designing a pretend library card.
I have two reasons for choosing to make a library card:
- 1. Again, for imaginary play. She seems to want to do everything just like mom lately, so I try to give her “pretend” versions of my makeup, cell phone, jewelry–you know the drill. I figure if I can make it, that's one less toy I have to buy.
- Family library. We love children's books at our house (okay, I love children's books). I started collecting children's books before I was even married. I especially like to collect children's books that teach a life lesson, because they benefit both children and adults. Because of that, we have a lot of books. Since I'm a big fan of toy rotations, I thought “Why not apply the same principle with all of our books?” Instead of having a massive pile of books in our little one's room, why not put them into rotation so that there's always something new and exciting to read each week? A fun way to do this would be to create a “Family Library.” My plan is to put all of our books down on a shelf in our storage room, and once a week the kids can bring their library card and swap out the previous week's books for new ones. My idea is to stick with about 10-15 at a time; that leaves enough for about two stories per night. If you have multiple children and want to make this extra fun, you could have the kids take turns using their cash register as the “library clerk” and check in/out everyone's books.
So fun.
DIY Pretend Library Card
Here's a blank library card for you to print (continue reading for instructions on adding your own kid's picture):
Tips for inserting your own photo: Download the pdf, and click “Take a Snapshot” under “Edit.” Then paste the Library Card into whatever program you have on your computer (Word, Powerpoint, etc.). You will then click on “Insert photo,” pick whatever photo you are wanting to put on your library card, and then size it accordingly.
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Take Your Kids to the Library
Playing pretend library at home is a lot of fun, but it's also fun to take a trip with your kids to the actual library! Libraries have so many fun books for kids to read. Your kid can read any book they want in the library without checking it out as long as they don't leave the library with it. This is a great way to nurture a love of reading.
Head over to your local library and set your kids loose to look through the books! You can also ask the librarian for suggestions on what books would be good for your kids, or what books are currently popular. Have your kids pick out one or two books to check out! If they want to check more than that out, make sure the library allows them to. Some libraries limit the number of books that one person can check out at once.
Before letting your little one check out a surplus of books, make sure they can read them all before the due date! If your kid happens to love one of the books that they check out, you can always consider buying them a copy for them to own forever.
A fun day at the library is a great pairing to your home library setup. A home library is a great way to introduce your children to libraries, so that they'll be prepared when they go to a real one!
Have fun!
- 4-serving meals starting at $3.77 per serving (up to 25% cheaper than HelloFresh).
- Incredible variety with 10+ weekly meal options, delivered directly to you.
- Easy to prepare meals ready in 30-minutes or less.
This was originally published as a guest post on ‘Or So She Says.'
Photo source: Amazon.com