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Thursday, December 31, 2015

Animal-themed quiet book

I first saw the idea for a baby-friendly activity book in an old craft book (it was called a rag book), but of course the Internet provided much better sources of inspiration.

My top quiet book resource recommendations:
Patterns:
You can download a rough template for the sheep applique and caterpillar color matching game here.

My quiet book design:

This animal-themed quiet book measures 8 inches by 8 inches. It's designed for a young toddler who isn't walking or talking yet. It has some basic pages he can enjoy now (exploring texture, manipulation of objects) and some more advanced pages he can grow into (color matching and numeracy).




Counting and color matching
The left-hand page is a counting page, with large, colorful butterfly beads that can slide along on a string to help him count up to three. The right-hand page is a color matching game. Each circle of the sun and friendly caterpillar detaches and can be matched. This page was by far the most difficult to make. The circles are made of fabric glued onto cardboard. It took several attempts to glue the Velcro to the back of the cardboard, ModPodge and hot glue didn't work. I have my fingers crossed that the Krazy Glue will hold.


The next two pages encourage exploring different types of texture. The butterfly was made from silky pajama bottoms and the fuzzy sheet was made from a recycled towel.



The last page is my favorite. I used the back pocket from an old pair of jeans to make the cover and made a small bear for the in-and-out game. 


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