Nostalgic

Yup, nostalgic. That would describe me quite well. It may stem from the struggles I've had with depression and the fact that most of my truly happy memories are from my childhood. Anyway, today's post came about because of something my mom did when I was a child that I remember fondly. 

I recall that she made some little paper books with pen or pencil drawings in them and simple words. Although I'm sure they are long gone (sniff!) I remember that they were kind of like beginning reader books she made-probably for my older sister to start learning to read. I can't even recall what any of them were about, just some vague memory of little paper books made by mom. 

So, one day I decided to do what any truly nostalgic homeschooling mother would do and make some little books for my own kids! I think some of them turned out to be pretty hilarious (for our family-you might not think so). The stories were related to things our kids wanted me to write for them or little things they would enjoy and that's the fun of it. The little inside jokes and family stories find their way into a "beginning reader" book and it makes reading so much fun! 

The specific examples I'm going to show you will probably seem kind of goofy and they are certainly badly drawn 'cuz I'm NO artist. But, hopefully the general idea might appeal to some of you and you'll figure out how to make some fun books for your own kids. I'm sure you could use all kinds of fancy photshop techniques and clip art and who knows what-all. I'm not very good at that sort of thing, so the kids are lucky to simply get a hand-drawn book! Though I must say, I think some of the charm of these books is that they include my handwriting and drawings instead of some impersonal picture from the internet. Something to keep in mind...

Here's my first book for the kids:

 

Yes, yes, no doubt people would pay good money for books this incredible! 

Here's one that includes a word Mimi made up and uses all the time. She thinks the book is hilarious:

 

 

 

 

This one I wrote for our little Car Man. He says "Ka-Chow" and that means Lightning McQueen from the Disney movie Cars.

 

 This one was for Tabs. She's been losing a lot of teeth and asked for this story. I only took pictures of a couple of the pages.

 

This last one is just a really basic beginning reader book with a silly story. Again, this is only a few of the pages:

 

  
Well, there you have it! My kids think these are really funny and we keep them safely tucked away in a cupboard  most of the time so they won't get ruined. After doing this our girls got excited about writing their own stories and have written a few during school time. Try it with your kids!