Photo Cards How -To

My sister was telling me about a great idea to help babies/toddlers recognize family members, animals, objects whatever you would like.  They are kind of like flash cards but with photographs and they can stick to the refrigerator.  I thought it would be a great way for my little one to become familiar with her family members.  I call them photo cards but you can call them what you like.  I made one for each person in our family (grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc.).  You can make them for anything you would like your child to recognize and become familiar with as long as you have a picture of it.  The great thing about this is that you can use things you already have at home!  Heres how I did it:

Materials:

Photos (magazines, newspaper, whatever photos you want your child to recognize)

Old photo album (I cut the individual pictures sleeves out of an old photo album)

Cardboard

Scissors

Paper

Marker/pen

Doubled sided tape

Magnetic Tape (the magnet strips that are sticky on one side, I got mine at Untied Art & Education, but I'm sure you can get them almost anywhere)

Clear packaging tape (optional)

Once you have all of your materials together you can start.  I took the photo sleeves out of an old photo album and cut them so were individual  photo pockets.  Put your picture in one side of the photo pocket.

Take your cardboard and cut it little smaller than the size of your picture.  My picture is a 4x6 so I cut my cardboard to 3 3/4x 5 3/4.  Once your cardboard is cut you can put it into the other side of the photo pocket.

Now take you magnetic tape and cut 2 two-inch pieces.  Stick the magnetic tape on the cardboard side of the photo pocket.

Now your photo card is complete.  There are some optional things you may want to add to your photo cards.  I decided to write the name of the picture so little ones could see the word and become familiar with it.  For this picture I wrote Flowers on paper in marker and cut it out.  Then I used my doubled sided tape and stuck one side of the tape on top of the word Flowers.  Now the other sticky side of the tape can be stuck on the inside of the photo pocket in front of the picture!

The other thing I did was I used clear packaging tape to seal the open side of the photo pocket.  I wanted to make sure the picture and cardboard wouldn't be taken out by little hands!

Then you can stick it to your refrigerator and the little ones can pull them off and put them on all the while learning and familiarizing themselves with family members, objects, animals, etc.

So there it is a photo card how-to.  I hope it makes sense and is helpful to you!  Happy making!