January is the perfect time of year for this project, whether you’re tossing old calendars from last year or have been gifted a few extras at the start of the new one. Armed with those, you can put together a “picture book” for your toddler!

To wit, we always seem to have extra calendars with nature and animal themes, which are perfect for toddlers because they tend to depict familiar images.

First Veronika and I simply flipped through all the pages together and ripped out any that appealed to her. This was fun as an activity in its own right!

Once we had a pile, Veronika helped smear glue sticks on the back of each picture to attach onto black construction paper. Depending how durable you want the final “book” to be, you can cover with contact paper, too.

Next we played a sorting game. She helped divide the images into piles by category. We ended up with birds, mammals, buildings, and nature scenes. These pictures can serve as great vocab builders, too, for things your toddler might not see often in real life (like stars, waterfalls, or high mountains).

Finally, I punched holes in each page with a three-hole punch and put them all into a three-ring binder. Now it was a “book” that she could flip through whenever she wanted!