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Print out an alphabet story book for your child!
This music alphabet book has a musical concept, instrument, or musical style for every letter of the alphabet, set to poetry, and in large font for early readers. Read below to learn how to make your own homemade book.
Step 1: Printing, optionally folding.
The pages in this music alphabet book will look funny at first because they are specially designed to create a book when folded in half vertically. Because of this, you will need to print out the document on two sides, and set the printer to flip the pages on the short side. If you simply fold the book in half, the pages will turn the way they should. I opted to laminate mine and cut them in half down the middle as shown later.
If you will not be cutting the pages, the booklets can be stapled with a industrial stapler, sewn together in small batches and then glued together, or you can punch holes on the top and bottom and bind them together with a ribbon.
Step 2: Optionally laminating, cutting, and hole-punching
For heavy use, I recommend laminating the pages, especially if you printed out the book in full color. You can always set your printer to black-and-white to save on ink if this is more to your liking.
After you laminate it, cut the pages in half and stack them together in book form. You can then use a three-ring hole puncher to punch holes for binding. The side you need to punch is only 8.5 inches instead of 11 inches, so there will be some extra space. That's okay. Punch on the bottom, then slide the page up and punch on the top. This will make your holes uniform in their spacing. It will also give you two extra holes in the middle, which you may or may not choose to use. I only used the top and the bottom.
Step 3: Binding
Tonight I didn't have a lot of options for binding the book, so I simply used yarn. This will work in a pinch and was good enough for me to let the kids read the book several times, but it will not hold up to heavy use. We have made several homemade books similar to this one and have used a variety of resources to hold them together. Here's a few ideas:
- We have used pipe cleaners wrapped through the top and bottom holes, winding up the ends together in the center. We then wrapped this part in electric tape in order to smooth out the pokey ends and make the book more durable.
- Keychain rings have been our favorite- they really hold up to heavy use!
- Binder rings work well and are available at office supply stores
- Thick ribbon tied securly.
Step 4: Read the story!
This of course is the best part! Pictured on the right is what my finished book looked like this evening. The children have already read it several times- they love it when I make homemade books!
For emerging readers, allow the children to be as involved in the text as possible. If they are learning their letters, ask them to identify the letters. Point under the words as you read them even if your child cannot read at all as this gives them exposure to ideas such as left-to-right, and will help them become familiar with common words. You can take turns reading a page or a word, or you can occasionally ask them to read words that they do know as this will help them gain confidence in the idea of reading. I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as my husband and I enjoyed making it.
(Yes- Michael deserves a shout out for helping me to edit this book, Thank you!)
