It’s good to check out an author’s website with your child to see if it includes activities to print. It extends the life of the book and helps you to use books that teach values longer. Children recall more when they have hands on experience with the information. Children also treasure a book more when they interact with the book. The activity reminds them they like the book.

I want children to experience fun when they read what I write, so I dream up activities to do with each book. These are great for when I’m speaking, but I also put various ones on my website. That provides freebies for all readers. Parents like finding these extras to use and find them helpful to get children interested in the book.

I demonstrate some of the activities to my FB audience with FB live (puppets and other crafts). I later load them into my You tube channel where they can be linked in my newsletters or even by my publishers. Two of my publishers plan to link to some of my freebies or put them directly on their websites.

I made a FB live of a doll necklace from my book God’s Girls#1 and added extra features to transform the doll into a princess. That way it’s also great to use with my book My One Year Princess Devotions. Check out the video. 

This link will also be added to my Pinterest page  with a photo once I redo the video. I want to include more closeups of the craft in a new recording. The Pinterest pages have some resources not on my website, like coloring page for the princess devotional and color photos of the crafts in the God’s Girls books.

For the princess devotions I have family prayer cards plus a memory card game to print, cut, and play: https://karenwhiting.com/resources/24275.pdf

Other books have puppets and crafts such as a simple sunflower paper puppet. With a puppet a child can retell the story or lesson and share that with a friend.

For parents, I often post past articles and link to current ones. These often provide ideas for strengthening the family or activities to do with a child. The added value is a great way to bless a family and help them nurture family bonds while encouraging reading.

If your child has a favorite book, consider what activities you can create to engage your child more and remind him or her of the values and concepts in the book.

Blessings,

Karen