When The Big Explorer started kindergarten some four years back, we created a nature ABC book. It was a simple way to combine his growing interest in letters and words with the time we spent outside in nature.
With The Little Explorer set to start kindergarten himself this fall, we’ve been talking about what kind of book he wanted to make. His choice? An animal photo book using pictures we’ve gathered during our numerous nature adventures.
If you’d like to create your own animal photo book, here’s what you’ll need:
- Camera
- Photos of animals (we chose from ones we’ve seen in real life, but images from books, magazines or even those online could work, too)
- Printer and photo paper, or a printing service
- Tape or photo mounts
- Photo album (to save money, use white or colored paper bound together with a loose-leaf ring)
- Pens or colored pencils
To make your own animal photo book:
- Visit places with lots of animals. A zoo, aquarium, farm or wildlife rescue center are good places to start. Don’t worry about trying to capture all your images at once; it’s more fun to continue the project by visiting several different places.
- Add pictures of backyard and neighborhood critters. Our animal photo book includes several backyard birds and insects. We also added animals we saw during our nature travels.
- After selecting your photos, print them out. Use your own printer or a printing service. It cost us less than $4 to print out all the photos we used in our book.
- Place your photos in an album. I bought a “special” photo album just for the occasion – one that’s more scrapbook than photo album. That allowed us to write in our own text, plus add pages in the future if needed. You could opt to create a digital photo book online if you prefer.
- Add details as desired. This was my favorite part – capturing The Little Explorer’s early letters. He decided he only wanted to include animal names, but there’s room to add in more details later if he changes his mind. Ideas: Where we saw the animal and when, what the animal eats and an interesting fact or two.
- Enjoy! Our DIY animal photo book is a current favorite for bedtime stories. The Little Explorer was so excited, he shared it will all his preschool friends, too!
