Reading Squares

Well, I have a little boy who is VERY active. I like to have "quiet time" at least once a day and needed a way to get him to stay in one place. I wanted to get a few carpet squares from my local Home Depot, but it turns out they make you pay for carpet squares and I was not about to pay for that ... so ... I took the only thing I already own tons of: fabric and made my own "reading squares".

I just took the fabrics that I had LOTS of and cut out rectangles, put right side together and sewed them almost all the way together, then turned them right sides out and sewed around the edges to finish. And tada! Reading squares! Here they are:

Baby Activity Book

I am going on a long plane ride to visit my family for Thanksgiving and decided I needed some seriously entertaining toys for my two boys. My youngest is 6 months old and wants to grab everything! So, I decided to make something to keep him grabbing at it the entire trip on the plane!!!! It's an activity book or what my sisters and I call a "quiet book" (meaning, we hope it keeps them quiet). Anyway, I already made one for my oldest son, but now I have one for both! Check it out:

This page has ladybugs with bells inside them that tinkle when he grabs at them.

This page has a "rain cloud" on the left that crinkles (I put plastic wrappers from a package of fruit snacks inside) which is kinda like a thundering rain cloud :) And the butterflys are simply squishable and are only sewn down in the middle so the wings can be flapped.

This page is a "scene" with flaps hiding a sun behind a cloud, frogs behind the pond, a car behind the grass and a bird in a birdhouse behind the tree.

This page has hats stuffed in a pocket and connected to the page (so you don't lose the hats) on the left. On the right are the boy and girl that wear the hats. There are velcro on the back of the hats and above the heads to attach them together.

This is just 3 colorful squares that can be moved around on a line ... kind of like you can count each one and move it to one side or the other.

This is totally a doable project (if you like to sew). I did it in one day ... with lots of interruptions from the peanut gallery (my boys :))