From Sherri Osborn,
Your Guide to Family Crafts.
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Shantel Davis shares suggestions for creating a touch-and-feel book that a toddler, or any child, can help make.

Materials Needed:

• Animal Die Cut (we will use cat as an example)
• Construction Paper
• Scissors (for you not the kids)
• Hole Punch
• Glue Stick
• Crayons
• 2 - 1" binder rings
• Embellish with Felt, foam, fake fur, metallic paper, sand paper, whatever else you desire

Instructions:
Prep work for the adult:

1. Cut out at least 6-8 primary colored cats for each child.
2. Take 7-9 different colored construction pages, cut in half for each child. (The extra piece of paper will be for the cover page.)
3. Come up with a different sentence to describe a part of the cat and write or type it on plain white paper. Cut out each individual sentence.
4. Find items that would "feel" like that part of the cat, and cut out 3" squares for each.

Now, let the kids have fun. Give each child on piece of construction paper and some crayons. Let them color it and help them put their name on it.

Next, give them all one cat, a different colored piece of construction paper, a glue stick, whatever you used to make the "feel" of that object on the cat, and the sentence. After they have finished that page, take it and place it on top of their cover page, and let dry. Repeat this until all pages are done.

Finally, use your hole punch for punch out two holes on one side of each page and line them up so you can insert the binder rings. Kids will have you read them for days!

Example: I use one piece of yellow constuction paper, one blue cat, a sentence that reads, "A cat's fur that feels like this.", and I would give them a piece of fake fur. Next, I would use a red page, a green cat, and a sentence, "A cat has ears that feel like this." Then I would use a much thinner feeling fur, maybe crushed velvet or felt squares. I would continue with his nose(foam), collar(metalic paper), tongue (sandpaper), etc., until I have 6-8 sentences.

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