Great make: plasticine books

This great comment from Cathy was too good to leave in the comments section.

Hi Joyce:

You've got me thinking about what sorts of things encouraged my boys to enjoy reading when they were small. One idea that really worked and was a lot of fun:

When my son was about seven or eight years old, he spent several snowy afternoons writing a simple story and illustrating it with playdough art. He was inspired by the Barbara Reid books, particularly "Two by Two," which is a wonderful depiction of "Noah's Ark."

Ryan worked for hours and hours on his "illustrations." I covered a flat surface for him with plastic and he produced eight different pictures. Then I took photos of each illustration and he dictated while I typed out the words for each page.

We put words and pictures together and created a book. Ryan was really proud of it. I think his grandpa was as well because he took Ryan's book to church where Barbara Reid was also a member. She was kind enough to respond with a letter to my son.

A nice memory!

Cathy

The image on this page is a plasticine picture by Barbara Reid, from her new book, Fun With Modeling Clay. Here are the step-by-step instructions for this project.