How to Create a Touch & Feel Polar Bear Book

There's nothing that incites a child to read more than an interactive book. Why not inspire your child to read by using the image of a great big polar bear in the Arctic? A touch-and-feel book is great for babies and toddlers, who experience everything by touching, and it isn't hard to create at home. By using a few scraps of fake fur, other craft remnants you might have around the house and construction paper, you can create a homemade touch-and-feel book that your child will love. You can even let them help in the process. Here's how to get started.

Things You'll Need

• Construction paper Hole punch Ring binder clips Glue stick Crayons and markers Scissors Fake fur scrap Blue cellophane Black plastic or rubber scrap Faux leather scrap Crinkly paper scrap Sequins

Instructions

How to Create a Touch-and-feel Polar Bear Book

1. Pick seven pages of brightly colored construction paper. Cut them in half. One half will be the front, the other half will be the back of each page.

2. Decide what parts of the polar bear you can bring to life depending on the material scraps you have handy. A patch of fake white fur is a must for the polar bear. A rubbery black fragment makes a good nose. Green or silver sequins make good fish, which a polar bear can catch in a stream. Crinkly white paper makes good sounds for snow. Faux leather is good for the underside of paws. Smooth blue fabric or cellophane can make a good ocean.

3. Draw your scene on each page. You can make the book a guessing game, for example. Start on page one with "Who swims in the deep blue sea?" Write this sentence on the cover side of your first page, and draw your scene of the ocean. Cut a hole in your drawing of the ocean. Match up your cover page to the other half of a construction paper piece. Cut your piece of blue cellophane or fabric slightly larger than your hole. Glue the blue piece onto the back side of the construction paper. Then glue the two construction paper halves together. Your first page is done. (Tip: if using cellophane, cut a hole in the back page as well so you can see all the way through the cellophane section.)

4. Make additional pages, highlighting areas of the polar bear, but never showing the whole bear. You can show paws with faux leather ("Who has soft leathery paws?"), nose with shiny black rubber ("Who has a black nose?"), snow with crinkly white paper ("Who walks in crunchy, cold snow?"), fish with sequins ("Who eats fish from a stream?"). End with the last page where you reveal the whole polar bear, with the soft white fur section ("It's the furry, white polar bear!").

5. Draw a cover page using your child's name in the title ("Emma's Touch N Feel Polar Bear Book") and the face of a bear, using a section of white fur to feel on the face. Hole punch the corner of the book and add a ring binder clip through the hole to hold it together.

Tips & Warnings

• Personalize the book by drawing a little cartoon of your child on each page. You can add her name, too: "Emma's looking at the soft paws," or "Emma likes to feel the crunchy snow."