DIY Leftover Magazine Toddler Vocabulary Flashcards

When I was pregnant with Ezra, I somehow received free subscriptions to a few baby and parenting magazines. I read through them and considered throwing them away, but for some odd reason I stuck them in a bag on the top of the front closet. I pulled them out last year to find cute phrases and sayings for magazine-text letters that I sent to Russ in Afghanistan (that in itself should be it’s own blog post).

Anyway, I got a genius idea this morning. At least I think it’s genius (it has yet to be toddler-tested), and I *think* that it’s mine. I spend a lot of time browsing crafty parenting/activity blogs so I may have seen something like this (or something similar) somewhere, but as of right now I can’t recall.

Ezra’s vocabulary has surpassed 130 words, at which point I have stopped counting… We were in the doctors office yesterday and there was a book that had photographs of different household items. Ezra has not as of yet expressed a lot of interest in reading books, but this book he really enjoyed because he could name some of the items in the photos.

“What’s this, Ezra?”

“Foofbahhh…”

“That’s right!!! It’s a football!”

It was very fun for both of us and helped pass time and keep him still when the doctors were doing their different torture routines.

So, back to my idea. I started browsing through the magazines and cutting out pictures of household items, shapes, letters, and numbers. Some that he knows, some that he doesn’t. Then I taped them to index cards and laminated them with contact paper. (Contact paper is destined to be my mortal enemy. After this project, I promptly bought a laminator.) The project took a little while, but I have quite a pile of toddler vocabulary flashcards for him now! I still have a good 15 more magazines to look through! I’m very excited to try them out with Ezra when he wakes up from his nap!

Materials needed:

• Index cards
• Old magazines
• Tape or glue sticks
• Laminating supplies

Directions:

Cut out objects out of the old magazines. Tape or glue to index cards. Laminate for durability. Have fun teaching your toddler new words!