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I love this idea because it is simple, inexpensive, and practical.
Starting a picture file is incredibly easy. You simply collect pictures from magazines, the internet, newspapers, catalogs,… everywhere. I mounted most of mine onto construction paper. If I were still teaching outside the home, I would probably laminate them, too. That seems like an unnecessary extra step for the home. I keep mine in a drawer in my craft area, but a folder or binder would work just as well.
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Uses for Your New Picture File
- Perhaps your visual learner needs to see something before s/he can write about it. You can choose a picture or have your little one choose a picture to write a sentence or paragraph.
- Overcoming writer’s block. The picture file can be a great source of inspiration whether your little one is writing a sentence or your older child is writing a short story, the picture file might just be the spark they need.
- Learning about nouns. I like to challenge my children to find as many nouns in the picture as they possibly can. If you give the same picture to more than one child, you can make it a competition.
- Learning about verbs. Little ones can point out the obvious verbs. With older learners, you might challenge them be more creative about the verbs in the picture. Perhaps encourage them to delve into more descriptive verbs. Younger learners might just point out that the eagle is flying while older learners might recognize that the bird’s eyes are penetrating the brush in search of food.
- Learning about adjectives. Just like nouns, I like to have my boys compete to see who can find the most adjectives. It is always fun to see what they come up with.
- Learning about adverbs, prepositions, and just about all other parts of speech. Yep, yep, yep, and yep.
- Inspiration for art projects. It can be a great source of inspiration for drawings, paintings, collages, finding a color scheme, or sculpting…
- Initiating great conversations with your little ones. Does your LO always choose the same pic or same theme? We can ask why. Does LO always avoid certain themes or color schemes? At times, the sentences my kids wrote were ho-hum, but the conversations we had about the pictures were priceless. Don’t underestimate the power of a great conversation.
- Writing word problems. A great way to make math more tangible is to relate it to a real-world situation through a word problem. A picture can help you to illustrate your word problem or help your child create their own word problems. Math & language mixing and blending just the way I like it.
There are so many ways to use a picture file that it is definitely a worthwhile investment of your time. I hope you agree.
