Making Quiet Books for the Kids
by Kathleen Gordon-Ross, associate editor

Mini Gospel Topic Reverence Books
The FRIEND magazine and all the amazing teaching tools the church has made available on lds.org have made creating little reverence books for our children so easy!

Select a gospel topic you want to help reinforce from family home evening, or primary, like the sacrament, serving a mission, baptism, temples, families, scripture heros, the Savior, etc. Search through past issues of the FRIEND for sharing time activities, messages from the first presidency, poems, songs, coloring pages, etc., that coordinate with your selected topic. Select related scriptures your children can start to memorize and include them in your book. Search the gospel art kits along with past issues of the FRIEND and ENSIGN to find coordinating artwork. Pass-a-long cards are another great source for images. The words to Primary songs from the Children's Songbook or even Sacrament meeting hymns are other excellent things to add.

Your mix of pictures and text will depend a lot on the age of the child your book is intended for. Younger children and early beginning readers will need mainly pictures with very simple text, no more than a few lines on each page. While older children with better reading skills can enjoy a 50/50 mix of words and images.

How you choose to organize your information and present it to your child is totally up to you - there are lots of options. Use small photo albums or scrapbooks; mount each page on heavy cardstock and laminate to create a flip book; create your own book using supplies from the office supply or scrapbook store.

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We've created two different books for you to download and print. Both were created using resources available on lds.org.

For each book you will need a color printer, white computer paper, one sheet colored card stock, paper cutter/trimmer, glue stick or double sided tape, one 4x6 inexpensive photo album that holds ~34 pictures.

My Story of Jesus - has illustrations of the life and minstry of the Savior that the children can color themselves. Best for children who can read.

The Sacrament - a mini reverence book about the Sacrament. Contains pictures, lyrics, scriptures, messages from the prophets, poems. Would work well for young non readers as well as older children with strong reading skills.

Printing, cutting, and assembly instructions:
Print page 1 on a sheet of colored cardstock. Cut apart so they measure 4.5” x 6.25.”  

Use your favorite pictures of the Savior – from the gospel art kit, a pass along card or from an old church magazine on the cover, inside cover, inside back cover, and back cover using tape or glue. Insert front and back covers in photo album.

Print remaining pages on regular white paper.

Using a paper cutter cut the pages apart (cutting 3-5 pages at a time) using the cutting template instructions. The cut numbers indicate the most efficent way to cut the pages apart. Pages should measure 4" x 6"; As you finish cutting apart a stack of pages, go ahead and insert them into album before cutting apart another small stack of pages. This will help you keep your pages in order.

Church Picture Book
This book consists of 19 different laminated 5x7 picture cards published by

the Church. The pictures depict the life of the Savior, Joseph Smith, Temples, Latter-day Prophets, etc. Pictures can be of any size and of anything relating to the gospel. If pictures are different sizes, mount smaller pictures on cardstock so they all end up the same size.

A thick heavy duty lamination works best for this, especially if you plan to use it with multiple children. I had them laminated at Office Depot, and I think they used ID lamination. They are very stiff - too stiff for my kids to bend. Consequently, it has held up really well after 8 years of use by my five kids.

Traditional Activity Book
This fabric book is filled with activities to keep your child’s hands and mind busy. The inscription inside says:

“My Quiet Book.
We’ll have such fun together,
My quiet book and I,
I’ll look at it and not disturb
The people with my cry
I won’t make a bit of noise
I’ll be quiet as a mouse,
For we want the Lord near
While we are in His house.”

Each page is interactive – tie my shoe, count the numbers
1-10, button the shirt, put the baby to bed, Zip up the tent, etc. The various pages are made from handcrafted appliqués and embellishments - something you could easily duplicate at home to make your own.

Check out our Crafty Chic instructions for a Gospel Centered Quiet Book similar to this one.

“Who Loves Baby”/Photo Album for Baby

Using doubles, pictures not quite suitable for the scrapbook, pictures of far away Aunts and Uncles, Grandma's and Grandma's, and engagement or Christmas card photos from friends and family, I created a simple, inexpensive photo album for my 21 month old. She loves to look through her photo album and see all the people she knows and who love her. This has really helped her to get to know and remember family members she doesn’t get to see very often.

Fabric Book
Made from a preprinted fabric panel this 10-page book about Bears is a quick sewing project for any level of sewer. Panels for fabric books like this one can be found at most fabric shops (Wal-Mart, Jo-Ann’s, Hancock, etc.) and online, on a variety of different subjects.