Here are some more details for the numbers book. For photos, see this post: https://lauraslefthook.wordpress.com/2007/11/29/last-christmas-i-bought-myself-a-cricut/
I used my Cricut cutting machine to make this book, but you don’t have to have one to do something similar. Before Cricut had a cartridge that had a hand shape on it, I found a hand template online and printed it out on card stock and cut it out to use for Valentine cards for my ASL playgroup.
I chose to make this to fit in an 8 by 8 inch album that I purchased at ACMoore. I have also made books and laminated the pages instead of putting them in a scrapbook.
I picked an animal theme partly because I had two Cricut cartridges with animals, and partly because most kids love animals. I did zoo animals because we already had a book on farm animals in the works. If you make a book, I would suggest a theme of some sort so that the book flows together and the child can predict what might come next.
In order to get the idea of each number across, I put the number, the sign, and the word for the number, as well as that number of animals on each page. This way my older daughter starts to read the number words while my younger daughter learns to count. They both review the signs for the numbers.
If you want to make a book, start by picking out the general layout you will do for each page. You can follow my idea, or you might want to put it all on one page for each number. Just be consistent throughout. If you don’t have a die cutting machine, just pick some cute pictures from online and print them out or draw your own!
I used glue dots to glue down the tips of the fingers for the hands. This way there is still some dimension to the hand, making it easier to see the finger placement.
CRICUT page by page usage:
1. left side: My Community hand 5.5 inches, Zooballoo 1 2 inches (repeats throughout)
right side: Animal Kingdom elephant 5 inches, Zooballoo one, 1
2. right side: Animal Kingdom giraffe 5 inches, Zooballoo giraffe 5.5 inches, Zooballoo two, 2
3. right side: Animal Kingdom alligator 1.5 inches, Zooballoo alligator ?, Zooballoo three, 3
4. right side: Zooballoo lion 2? inches, Zooballoo four, 4
5. right side: Animal Kingdom monkey 3.5 inches, Zooballoo monkey ?
6. right side: Animal Kingdom tiger 3.5 inches (cut black, then orange top layer), Zooballoo tiger ? (cut two ways for variety)
7. right side: Animal Kingdom hippo 2 inches (with purple shadow behind), Zooballoo hippo ? (shadow behind again)
8. right side: Zooballoo zebra ? (black with white top layer)
9. right side: Animal Kingdom camel 3.5, 2 inches (cut tiny pieces for head and tail)
10. right side: Animal Kingdom kangaroo 3, 2.5 inches (joeys cut in darker brown)
Somewhere I have some exact measurements that I wrote down while making this. If I can find them, I will add a few more cutting details for cricut lovers.
[…] it seems logical that I would try to do some crafty things incorporating ASL. So far, I have made a counting book for my daughter which is posted on my blog, a simple signs scrapbook, and a few simple books to […]
You have a very interesting blog Laura!
Hey Laura, just found your blog. It’s me Deja from etsyhookers. I didn’t know you ASL, I learned back in high school, they were great and counted it as a foriegn language requirement (too bad they didn’t add it before my two years struggling through Spanish).
Hey Laura, just found your blog. It’s me Deja from etsyhookers. I didn’t know you ASL, I learned back in high school, they were great and counted it as a foriegn language requirement (too bad they didn’t add it before my two years struggling through Spanish).
+1