6 Ways to Incorporate Books into your Child's Day at Home

As parents now homeschooling our kids we’re all in need of ideas to help keep the kids engaged and have them continue reading! A great way to incorporate books into your child’s day at home is to choose a daily theme for your day. Then choose a related book and use it as your launch point! Select your child’s favorite books and create different activities that focus around that book for a fun-filled day. Today I want to share with you six easy ways to incorporate books into your child’s day at home.

Here are six fun ways to incorporate books into your child's day at home #readingforkid #activitiesathome #activitiesforkids #homelearning

How To Incorporate Books Into Your Child’s Day at Home Activities

We’ve been incorporating this set of activities into our days at home and it’s been our saving grace. By choosing a daily theme, we’ve been able to discover great new books and come up with a list of related activities, beyond just reading the book. This has kept my kids engaged (and occupied) all day long. Plus, gets the kids excited about reading new books! Here are some simple ideas to incorporate into you book of the day activities:

Practice vocabulary – It’s easy to select words from the book you read together and have your child practice writing and reading these words. Read through the new book together and select theme-related words that may be new to your child. They can even spend a little time explaining what these words mean. You can also identify sight words that your child may be learning according to their grade level and have your child practice those words.
Create an art masterpiece – Have your child select favorite scenes from the books you read together. They can even choose their favorite characters from a book and draw a picture of them. Use crayons, markers, paint, or even sidewalk chalk outside to get some fresh air!
Create sock puppets – It’s easy to create sock puppets out of unused socks and create a mini puppet theater show based on the day’s theme and book you read together.
Create your own storybook – Try having your child recreate their favorite book or even make a new storybook! Use whatever materials you may have at home: paper, paint, crayons, etc. You can read this new storybook together later and it’s a memory you can always keep.
Create a video – Kids love playing on our phones, tablets, and computers. And nothing is more exciting that using these devices to create a fun video to share with others. There’s no denying that every kid loves watching videos on YouTube and they often enjoy pretending they’re the YouTube star on the screen. Have your child act out scenes from the book you read together or create a fact-filled video presentation to show what they’ve learned from a book. You can even have your child record themselves reading the book and share it with family and friends via social media.
Create a fun project – Design a new project around a new theme and the book you read together! For example, we recently learned all about coral reefs and read the book Good Night Coral Reef. Then we created our own coral reef out of Playdoh. Get creative! Any materials you have at home can be used to design a project that shows what your child has learned from reading a new book. Use crayons, construction paper, paint, cardboard boxes, toilet paper cores, newspaper scraps and magazines, and even Playdoh to recreate a favorite scene, design a diagram, or build a new structure. The possibilities are endless!

In the days and weeks ahead I’ll continue sharing more resources with you, including what’s working/or not working for us as we settle into this “new normal” during the current Coronavirus Pandemic.