How to Make a Growth Chart for Your Child

As a home schooling mom, I'm always on the lookout for ways to get my children interested in math and numbers. As soon as they were old enough to understand that people grow, they took an interest in seeing in just how tall they were. I made these growth charts to help them chart their height as they get older.

To make your growth chart, you'll need about six feet of paper. You can get ends of rolls of newsprint from your local newspaper printer. (They'll often give away the very last of the roll because it is difficult to feed through the machines.) This paper is great for all kinds of crafts, and it is perfect for making your growth chart because you simply unroll as much as you need. Other options for paper include freezer paper unrolled, or simply taping several sheets of construction paper end to end until it's long enough.

Next you will need to pick a theme for your growth chart. I like to pick something that I know the child is interested in. For instance, if your child is on a dinosaur kick, you can use dinosaurs. If your child is interested in nature, you may pick trees. Decorating your growth chart in a theme you know your child likes will help keep him or her interested in charting later on. Try not to pick something that's so juvenile that your child will outgrow the idea of it later.

Next you will decorate your paper. You want a design that goes from the all the way from bottom to top with obvious visual breaks along the way. For instance if you were doing animals, you might do giraffes, with spots along his neck on the way up. If you are doing trees, your chart will have branches. If your child likes fire trucks, you could have a fire truck at the bottom with an extended ladder going up. The idea is to have something that your child can work towards; the next branch on the tree, the next wrung on the ladder, and so on.

Encourage your child to help you decorate your growth chart as much as their age and ability will allow. Even fairly young children can help color in the larger areas. Once you have your growth chart colored in, you'll need to add the measurement markings.

Using a ruler or yardstick, start at the bottom and mark off increments at least an inch apart from bottom to top. Be sure to mark not only the inches, but the also the feet. For very young children you may want to mark off fractions within the inch, (half inches or quarter inches), so that they can see even their small progress.

Once your growth chart has all the measurements filled in, you'll attach it to the wall. Make sure that you tape the bottom right at the floor, so that your measurements will be as accurate as possible. Of course, if you have more than one child, you will want to do a separate growth chart for each of them.

Pick a certain day, once a week, once a month, or whenever it is convenient for your family, to have your child stand next to the chart while an adult marks off how to tall they are. Be sure to write a date next to the mark.

Not only will this growth chart be a lot of fun for your child to help make and use now, it will also be an invaluable keepsake for you in later years.

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