You know those beautiful, big coffee table style books with art, people from history, or famous landmarks around the world? Some are lovely as is but others, let’s face it, never get opened for one reason or another. Sometimes they have images we don’t want to expose our children to, others are just dull despite beautiful pictures, some have some beautiful pictures and some “eh” ones, and sometimes they are just awkward to open and use.
I have found these coffee style books to be plentiful at thrift stores and library sales, and occasionally at yard sales (especially church ones where many – and usually older – people donate).
When my boys were very little I was inspired to cut some of those books up and use them with them to expose them to various people, places, and art. We still have the cards and use them, though much less frequently than when we first started.
I first started with a book of people from the 20th century and, apart from reading good books, it turned out to be one of my favorite activities to use with the boys to learn about historical figures from the past century.
I cut out some of the pages from the book of the faces of various people, attached each image to some card stock, wrote a few details on the back (full name, birth and death dates, accomplishments, etc) and then laminated the cards.
When we first started using these cards I would hold up a card and, if they had any connection to the person, I would try to draw that connection for them through questions to see if they could guess the person’s name or position.
As they became more familiar with each person I would spread the cards out on the table, place a small treat on each image, and they would take turns picking a person and telling me their name and some interesting detail about the person. As time went on they were able to add more and more details about what they knew of these historical characters. It honestly seemed like them simply being exposed to these men and women on the cards made them “pop” out in other life situations and it thrilled the boys. I can’t tell you how many times they’d be in a conversation with someone who would start to mention one of these men or women from history and then that older person would say; “But you don’t know who that is.” and one of the boys would pipe up with something they knew of that person.
We never focused on memorizing dates but I would casually point out the dates for them, and a lot of these people have been added to their timeline book.
Of course nothing beats a beautiful, living book to learn about people and places in history (and some art pieces, too!) I am not much one for busy work and unnecessary activity – but I found the visual of letting them SEE the person and (I know this sounds weird!) “hold” the person, and talk casually about the person helped draw a deeper connection for them with the characters from history.
Additionally, I really strove to connect them to something bigger than just a random selection of people. While the book I originally selected from was fairly narrowed down in that its focus was simply men and women from the 20th century (I can’t recall how many there were originally in the book) – I was very particular in my selection.
For example, Jonas Salk was one of the men I chose. He was the inventor of the successful Polio Vaccine in 1957. My mom, their grandma, had Polio in the mid 50’s and still suffers from that all these years later. All of sudden Jonas Salk has some sort of relevance to them because of this tie and they find him interesting because of their grandma’s connection to the disease he helped cure.
I mentioned I used a treat for them – the most popular treat I use with them is chocolate covered sunflower seeds. They’re ridiculously delicious. These are perfect little treats. If they get the card right, they eat the treat. If they get it wrong they don’t get the treat.
The faces from history are my favorite cards, but I have made these with images of famous buildings from around the world, and famous pieces of art. Both coming from books from second hand stores or library sales that I purchased and then cut up. (It was way harder than I thought it would be to cut up a book, despite the fact that I bought the books super cheap just for this purpose!!)
I use to pull these cards out at lunch 2-3x a week when they were much younger. Now, at 8 and 10, it isn’t anywhere close to that frequent, in part because I probably need to update them (!) and because our lunches have changed (they listen to an audiobook) and I haven’t found a naturally way to make it a part of our routine.
If you have found other uses for these oversized books (apart from, you know, reading them like a book!) I would love to hear your ideas, too!
