I was hanging in a cloth diaper chat group when a fellow mom posted a picture of her child’s quiet book. I hadn’t heard of these before, but I was in love with the concept: a series of pages with simple activities to keep a toddler occupied and happy. Each page can teach a skill, such as tying or buttoning, or just offer a task, such as putting cookies in a jar. Anything to keep them busy/quiet, right? So I hopped on Pinterest and started pulling up ideas!
There are hundreds upon hundreds of templates that you can print out to copy to make your quiet book pages. You can also be like me and wing it! I drew used templates for inspiration, drew what I wanted on the felt and cut out the shapes.
I used plain white felt as the base of most of these pages. They are 8×8 squares, and when I have enough I’ll punch three holes in each and tie the pages together with ribbon. One more note: I am completely anti-sewing. Aside from the fact that I don’t even have a sewing machine, for me it’s just too time consuming, and I knew could make it look just as cute with my nifty hot glue gun! So in addition to being adorable and functional, these pages are no-sew — a win all around.
Tie the ballet shoes
I saw ballet shoes and I was instantly in love with this idea for our tying page. It’ll be awhile before my 2 year-old is ready to tie her shoes but she can definitely have fun trying.
Match the colors
In honor of my grandmother, I collect elephants for my daughter. So when I saw this page on Pinterest, I just knew we had to have it. There are two sides to each balloon; they attach with Velcro. This will help her with learning her colors.
Put the cookies in the jar
I don’t know about your little ones, but my daughter LOVES cookies. Hence the cookie jar! This will help to keep her busy (I pray) while she puts the cookies in the jar and takes them out again. Luckily she’s realized that these aren’t edible!
Put the monkeys to bed
Five little monkeys jumping in the bed! Well … three little monkeys actually! These are actually finger puppets I can entertain her with, or that she herself can play with. They’ve been a huge hit!
Count the beads
This page will help her learn to count 1 to 5. I used her hair beads to make it!
Help the bear roast his marshmallow
This little bear camping is our latest addition. He is connected with a ribbon and he can come out and go close to the fire and roast his marshmallow!
Well, this is all we have so far! I’d like to have twelve pages total so we’ve got six more to go! My daughter found the pages lying around one day and they were a surefire hit! But I’d like to keep this book as a novelty, so in the future she’ll only be allowed to have it when we take her older brother to karate, doctors appointments and things like that.
I hope this inspires you to make your own quiet book!
If you’ve made a quiet book, share your ideas for pages in the comments — I’d love to hear what your kids have enjoyed!
[…] adore quiet books! I’m slowly putting one together. It’s not assembled yet, so I just bring the […]