I don’t know about you, but I snap a lot of pictures on my phone. Which means I have a lot of photo memories of our summer adventures. But what about recording summer memories from your child’s perspective? Check out a couple of ideas for capturing kids summer memories, and create some keepsakes to treasure!
Kids Summer Memories – Travel Journal
We recently returned from our summer family vacation in Florida. On the long drive back from Florida to Texas, my five-year-old son had out a notebook and markers, and he kept asking me what he should draw. The spontaneous activity turned into something I plan to repeat every year – a kids travel journal!
Since he’s not reading and writing yet, it’s a picture travel journal. And I just think it’s so darn adorable! Below are my prompts, what he drew, and a photo of his drawing. I also labeled each picture in his journal, so we’d remember what each drawing was of in future years.
“What was your favorite thing about our vacation?” Drawing: the beach with a boat and umbrellas.
“What else did you enjoy doing on vacation?” Drawing: my son riding a bike near our vacation rental house and a fountain. Because what kid doesn’t like to ride his bike by a large outdoor fountain with mist blowing everywhere?!
Drawing: my son playing putt-putt golf.
“Draw a picture of us driving right now.” Drawing: gray SUV driving on a bridge over the water.
And by chance good luck, he drew these in the personalized notebook I made him a few years ago! Check out how I made it using a Dollar Tree composition book and scrapbook paper.
If you have an older child reading and writing, consider buying a travel journal for them to complete as the trip goes along. This travel journal gets great reviews!
Kids Summer Memories – Lego Book
My son also loves playing with Legos. He’ll follow instructions and build from a set, but more often than not, I catch him building his own creations. One day this summer, he asked if we could make a Lego book of his own creations.
Give your child a box of classic Lego pieces, and see what creative designs and creations they come up with!
To make the Lego book, I took pictures on my phone of each creation with a simple background. A piece of white foamboard from Dollar Tree does the trick, or just put a table up against a blank portion of a wall.
I pulled the photos from my phone on to my computer and created a Google Slides document (Google Drive‘s free version of Microsoft PowerPoint). I sized down the photos in order to fit multiple pictures on each page. After printing it on our color printer, I stapled the left edge to make a “book.”
If you want to make it even easier, just print 4″ x 6″ photos directly from your phone using an app like Walgreens. Then let your child glue or tape them to paper.
How are you capturing summer memories? How do your kids enjoy expressing their creativity?