DIY: Make Your Own Ever-changing Book

Are you a classroom teacher or play & learn at home parent looking for a fresh new way to approach the classical approach to "circle time?" Do you have children ranging in ages under your care? Do you work or live with children who are very active or are you looking for ways to bring more structured activities with you on the go? Meet the Ever-changing Book--the perfect DIY for you and your little ones! 

Now, before I begin, let me give credit where credit is due! This is not entirely my own idea, but rather was adapted from a tool used by a local librarian we met at a toddler story time yesterday. Some friends will recommend a story time they think your children will enjoy, but true friends know to recommend a story time they think you will enjoy. A friend of mine steered us toward this particular librarian who used to teach in a Montessori school as she felt I would appreciate her approach and style. I was so impressed with her demeanor, pace and style that I worked up the courage to chat with her afterward (yes, I get starstruck when I meet a cool teacher, librarian or author). One of the most unique materials she introduced to the children was her own Ever-changing Book, a 12 x 12 photo/scrapbook album with letter sound songs and pictures in each page. She adapts her book to introduce a set of letters and letter sounds to her audience. Well, the gears were already turning in my head and truthfully, even if S hadn't asked to make our own Ever-changing Book and have "story time at home," I would already have driven five miles above the speed limit, 55% off coupon in hand to the craft supply store that evening to start our own version!

Our Ever-changing Book reflects our current play theme of butterflies, bugs and insects. Letters are something we are always exploring and learning about, and this can be theme related, too, even if it is an activity you do year round. I have also included a fun fact sheet about butterflies...

When S and I did home preschool, we often did some version of a circle time or rug time activity. I was less likely to really work on being seated and stationary in these times and many times, our morning songs and routines were done in transition or on the go. I knew as a teacher and as a parent that S and all young children have a life ahead of them in which they will need to "sit still" and "pay attention." I also knew as a teacher and as a parent that just like we focus in these early years on emergent literacy by exposing children to a larger skill set that leads to reading, so, too, do we expose children to a larger skill set that leads to sitting still. And these skills are developed through moving!

Songs, poems and action rhymes encourage rhythm and movement whether you are indoors or outside! Some songs are seasonal and others theme related. There are many songs we sing daily, year-round, particularly ones related to daily prayers. Visual aids (like pictures) and small, flat props can be included with those as well.

Lastly, I also knew that both in my smaller classroom settings and in our own home setting, having all of our "circle time" activities and props available in one convenient location is not always possible or convenient. This meant either moving about the room (not such a bad thing) or schlepping materials in baskets and bins as we needed them. Often this would interrupt the routine and flow of our time together. And when I looked at some of the components of the traditional circle time and the setting in which we were doing it, it simply didn't make a lot of sense. Talking about the weather indoors and no where near a window, made no sense! We should be observing that outside. And trying to incorporate music and movement in a smaller seated space didn't work as well as it did in a larger, more open space. More and more I also observed the need for children to have things they could touch and manipulate during seated group times, but there was still a separation between their materials and mine.

Both boys love this action rhyme that incorporates counting and early math skills. The laminated butterfly stick puppets are a wonderful prop to include--I just google searched some images and clip art I liked of butterflies to cut out and include.

The Ever-changing Book seemed to address all of these concerns and more! It is kind of a "busy-binder" meets circle time, crossbred with a classroom bulletin board! I had to resist the urge to go completely overboard and pull an all-nighter as ideas on what to include swarmed my brain. I decided that for all involved, a well rested Mommy and an introduction of just a few pages at first were best for everyone. Here's a look at what we used, what we've included so far, and what we may add in as time goes on...this is, after all, an Ever-changing Book!

You Will Need:

• a photo album, scrapbook or binder with sheet protectors--you'll want something you can alter (so no sticky pages--though you could even create a book of felt and use velcro)
• paper, cardstock--I found a great discount on clearance scrapbook sets and had a coupon for the album itself and walked out with two $20 paper packs and a scrapbook all for under $25!
• laminating machine (optional)--I prefer to laminate my materials for durability 

What You Might Want to Include:

• printed/handwritten songs, fingerplays and action rhymes including ones you sing daily or ones that are specific to your theme or the season
• themed or seasonal artwork
• current/theme-related artwork done by the children
• current photos of your children or family doing theme or season related activities--these can be used to tell a social story or simply to start conversations about what you're up to at home or in the classroom
• small, flat props like laminated shapes, letters, numbers, sand letters and numbers, stick puppets/pointers etc. that can be used in songs and rhymes or otherwise manipulated by the children in simple puzzles or matching games 
• printed stories and poems to incorporate in story telling
• visual aids and charts that can accompany daily songs, prayers or poems
• a countdown page or photo/picture page related to an upcoming holiday, event or family trip
• insert pages and a dry erase marker that older children can use to practice writing letters, numbers, their names, words, shapes, line-tracing, etc.
• gross motor games/action cards

I've really shied away from the traditional "calendar time" approach used so often in early childhood classrooms. While learning about time, the date, month and season are all important, learning about them repeatedly out of context does not necessarily prove to be helpful in the long term. Many students even by the age of five still struggle with the concept of days of the week, yesterday and today in context but can recite them by rote in a song. Heck, even as an adult I often don't know what day it is! But I do love including relevant seasonal photos, art, and a season related song or poem. We talk about other aspects of the calendar and weather in context as we are going about our daily routines and activities.

It can be really tempting to go overboard and include EVERYTHING right away, especially if you are me! It is OK and even good to have some blank pages here and to go with the mantra that less is more. The greatest benefits of this model are that it is transportable and that it is ever-changing! You want to be able to grab it and go without breaking your back. And just like a traditional book that is too long won't maintain a child's attention, neither will an ever-changing book that is too long. 

And how often should you change your ever-changing book? I like the idea of certain things remaining the same as others change so that there is always an aspect of familiarity. You might pull things out and swap others in as your theme changes. We're exploring butterflies, bugs and insects here this week, so our letter page and fingerplay are butterfly related. We'll change those out when our theme changes. Some of our other songs are related to the season we are in--those we would swap out as Fall arrives. 

Our aleph-beis chart and pointer are something I'd include year round, though we may change out our chart or prop at some point should the inspiration strike. We are also working on creating our own sand letters to include a few at a time in a page. These are great for tactile recognition and pre-writing.

Repetition is the essence of learning and while novelty has its place and appeal, repeating familiar songs and routines helps children to feel secure in their environment and to process new material. And particularly when working with mixed age groups, repeating familiar activities has developmental appeal to everyone! S can take on the role of "leader" in activities he is proficient in at his age and build confidence along with competence. Y is gaining a great deal of verbal language right now, so repeating songs and rhymes is essential. If you are working with mixed ages, you can also include age/developmentally specific pages for each of your little ones.

So, now that you've got your Ever-changing Book, how should you use it? Well, that's up to you! But here are a few ideas:

• Create a Familiar Routine Around It: I like to use a wood chime to call children to quiet attention in my classrooms and sometimes even at home. This can signify the beginning of a "circle time" or "group time" or "cozy time" (whatever you choose to call it) whether you are at home/in the classroom or out and about. The familiarity of chime and of the book will let the children know that this is the activity whether or not the time and location of the activity are the same. 
• Use it in a Familiar Space: Perhaps you sit at the table together or maybe you have a special rug or room, chair or couch. You can make a habit and routine of using your Ever-changing Book in a particular location or even at a particular time of day. You can also break it up into multiple time slots, especially if you're short on time or your little ones seem disinterested at a particular point.
• Take It Along With You: This is one of the great bonuses of this model. You can take it to the yard, to the park, on your family vacation or field trip. One of the greatest challenges teachers and beginning homeschool parents have when getting started is getting everyone together in one place at one time. This is why I love the Ever-changing Book. It can go where the action is, it can be opened when children are engaged and closed when they are not.
• Troubleshooting: Don't be discouraged if this new material is met with less enthusiasm than you'd expected. New things can be disconcerting for little ones. If your little one(s) wanders off after a minute or two, consider trying again later or tomorrow. If over the course of a few tries, their attention is not engaged, you might want to include less or change up what's inside. Does your little one respond to music? Include more songs? Does she like to hold something? Include more props? Is he very mobile and active? Take it with you to a space that is big enough for movement and focus on movement games and songs interspersed with more stationary ones.
• Older children: Older children may benefit from their own Ever-changing Book that is used more independently (think more busy-binder style). These are great for quiet times, waiting times and (for non-motion sick children) travel times.

Check back in for more ideas to include in your Ever-changing Book as we will be making updates as we go along. Until then...

Happy Playing!

Tuesday Table Time: Homemade Playdough

Playdoughs are a sensory material that can be enjoyed from a very young age all the way through adulthood. Even very little ones can appreciate exploring taste safe and homemade options. There's a lot of great playdoughs, clays and similar sensory materials on the market available at craft and hobby stores and there are also a lot of wonderful recipes to make your own using ingredients you already have to some more obscure ones. My son could play with playdough every day and likely never tire of it. I do keep a stock of the store-bought stuff on hand but I also love the process of making my own and he's now at the age where he can really appreciate climbing up on his step-stool and helping out with the process in the kitchen.

The most common recipe I use for playdough is the classic stove-top recipe below:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1/4 cup salt
• 2 TBSP cream of tartar
• 1 TBSP vegetable oil
• 1 cup water

Optional additional ingredients: 

To add color:

food coloring, liquid watercolor or tempura paint

To add scent:

 extracts, essential oils, spices

To add texture:

glitter, beads, sequins

Directions:

Mix first 3 ingredients in a medium pot. Add remaining ingredients and stir. Cook and continue to stir over medium heat about 3-5 minutes. The mixture will start to thicken and become lumpy. Continue to cook and stir until it forms a blob in the middle of the pot. Remove from heat. The dough will be quite hot so handle cautiously at first--this is not the part little ones should help with! Once it is cool enough to handle, knead on a nonstick surface (I use a vinyl cutting mat or placemat) and it is ready to play with and explore. Dough can be stored and saved in a ziplock back or airtight container for at least a few weeks.

I am a minimalist when we first start with playdough. I like to introduce it unscented with no color and no tools at first. Touching and kneading alone can provide a great deal of enjoyment and fascination for little ones. A "blank" dough is also a great way to explore mixing colors. You can add one primary color and then another using food colors or paint (note that food color can stain hands for quite a while when it is not yet mixed in, so you may want to use rubber gloves or mix in a ziplock bag). Adding tools like plastic knives or cookie cutters can add to the level of exploration as well. Again, I take a minimalist approach, providing only one or a few tools at a time on many occasions rather than a whole bin of options. I am also always intrigued by the ideas my son comes up with on his own of what to use as a "tool!" 

We use playdough at least once a week as a Table Time activity. It can easily be related to a theme by adding appropriate tools, toys and accessories:

Purple Peppermint Playdough with Construction Vehicles for our Transportation Theme

Hope you have fun digging in, getting your hands doughy and as always, happy playing!

Tuesday Table Time: Invitation to Doodle & Draw

This week's Table Time is a great one for a rainy day. In fact, this is one we did on just such an occasion. We used white craft/butcher paper to cover the length of our dining room table, although you can also do this on a child's table or even the floor. I set up a different material at each of several of our seats and let my son doodle and draw at each of the stations at his own pace. We used crayons, markers, do-a-dots, chalk pastels and "creamy crayons." If you're feeling extra adventurous or have older children who need less support and could help support younger ones, you can also add watercolors and other paints. This would be fun as well with stamps and ink pads, stickers, collage materials... Something about a large work space and an open invitation to create is enough to add new life to old familiar art materials. Whether it's 100 degrees and sunny or pouring rain, this is a great way to captivate the attention and creativity of artists of all ages. My husband liked the finished product so much, he suggested we put a plastic table cover over it and use it as our Shabbos tablecloth that week!

Think Outside the Box Thursday: Music-free Car Trips

Think-Outside-The-Box Thursdays will include posts that aim to solve tricky family situations at home and beyond. This week I am tackling one of many aspects of car trip challenges: what to do about the stereo? Perhaps you have multiple passengers ranging in ages who have different tastes in music (i.e.: mommy can't listen to The Wiggles even one more time today) or perhaps you live in a Jewish home like ours and are coming up on The Three Weeks, a period in which many Jewish families take on customs of mourning including the custom to not listen to music. The good news is that my toddler and I both love listening to music in the car and it makes car trips a lot easier for us both. The bad news with these music-less three weeks coming upon us is that my toddler and I both love listening to music in the car and it makes car trips a lot easier for us.

So, thinking outside the box a bit, I traveled to one of our local libraries and perused the audio books section. For older children, there are a host of audio books in fiction and non-fiction available. For younger ones, there are packs containing both a CD of a recorded story and a copy of the book along with it. This seemed like a great fit for our car over this period of time and perhaps one we will keep stocked even afterward. You can certainly all enjoy just playing audio stories alone and if your children are prone to carsickness, this may be a best option. If your little ones can read in the car or enjoy having books or toys in the car seat, an audio and physical copy of a book can be a great car activity. I let my son drink water and eat snacks in his car seat and didn't entirely trust library books back there as well. I opted to seek out audio book sets with some of his favorite stories we already have copies of at home so he can flip away at the pages worry free. Board books are a great travel friendly option for toddlers. If you have multiple passengers in the back seat, many libraries have multiple copies of children's books so each passenger can hold his/her own copy for the trip. Additionally, there are a variety of great audio-book apps out there and podcasts that can be downloaded prior to a trip. And if your child's favorite story doesn't happen to be already recorded, you could record yourself reading it on your phone and play that in your car.

I burn copies of audio books onto my iPhone's playlist so I always have them handy. I keep the audio book sets and CDs we check out of the library organized in our car by keeping them all in a tote bag that's ready for library trips and returns whenever we are. To organize individual sets, you can also use ziplock bags.

Whether you're trekking near or far, listening to The Wiggles or Pride and Prejudice, may you have safe and easy travels and happy playing!

Tuesday Table Time: What Is Table Time Anyway?

It's Tuesday morning, but it could be any weekday morning in this house. My husband leaves for work by 5:30AM, and since being home for the summer and no longer needing to set the ol' alarm every night, I've yet to wake up after my toddler--but I'm aware it could happen. It is a known fact that I am a morning person. I just need to have my coffee first. One of my sweet little boy's first words was "coffee," and he's been known to pick up my cup, hand it to me and say "Mommy, more coffee" on occasion when my amazingly perky demeanor hasn't woken up yet. I needed a plan going into this summer as well as the year ahead--something that could occupy my toddler while I activate my pleasant daytime mode or prepare breakfast or just take a few deep breaths to start the day. And so, from a simple child's sized card table and chairs as well as a dose of ingenuity, Table Time was born.

And it's not just a morning thing. Table Time refers to any activity that can occupy the attention of a child of any age for a developmentally reasonable length of time (with a toddler, this varies) with minimal adult support and involvement. To be clear, this is not the time I set out the Netflix (although that also has its time and place in our home). When he was a baby who could not yet sit at a table, I frequently set out discovery baskets-- a basket with household items like measuring cups, measuring spoons, metal colanders, spoons and spatulas, or sensory bottles for shaking and exploring, or a variety of fabrics like scarves, washcloths, fuzzy socks and silk fashion scarves for my son to explore. This was one of his first entrances into the world of independent play and tinkering. I might leave the same basket out for a week or so at a time and then swap the materials out. Now that he is two, one aspect that makes Table Time successful is the novelty of it. I do set out a different activity each night before I go to bed that he can use in the morning and throughout the following day as desired. I do not, however, reinvent the wheel on a daily basis. Many of our activities follow a weekly routine and rotation. Every Friday morning, my son comes to a table set up with a plastic cup and stickers he uses to decorate his own kiddush cup for the upcoming Shabbos meals. Usually about once a week lately, the activity involves playdough as that is a current favorite of his. This is an activity he will often revisit multiple times throughout the day. As we explore themes in our "Mommy Camp/Mommy School," or as certain holidays or seasons approach, I aim for the activities to be theme related. Pinterest is a great resource for this and there are many blogs as well as books devoted to sharing ideas for age-based activities, projects and games. Sometimes I will even set out a toy he hasn't played with in awhile or put a couple of toys out that he may not have thought to use together before.  My son does not always choose to use what I set out on the table nor does he always use it in the way I anticipated. I am totally OK with this. It is there if he is interested, he knows what to expect and many times if an activity does not draw his interest on its own, my sitting at the table and beginning to play will draw him in and lead to independent play.

My essential goal with Table Time activities is to encourage independent play (not as in a babysitter in place of me, although independent play can act as an extra set of hands while a parent gets a few things done around the house). Many times I make observational comments (non-judgmental and non-praising) just noticing what my son is doing. Feeling noticed can feed a need for healthy self-esteem in a more sustainable manner than even comments of praise--think recognition versus approval. For example, I might say "I see you're rolling the playdough into a long, thin shape" as opposed to "I love how you're making a wiggly worm" or "great job with the playdough today!" Sometimes I do join in the activity with him (and some activities do require more assistance than others, like peeling smaller stickers off the paper), and other times I do not. I love watching the ideas children can come up with on their own for using materials and activities set out in this manner. In homes where children span in age, a bit more creativity may need to come into play. While unattended markers might be a great material for an older child to use independently, they may be a recipe for a new paint job for a younger one. On the other hand, an older child can support a younger one in using markers, or Table Time activities that are geared toward older children can be reserved for the times when the younger ones are napping and the older ones are bored.

Lastly, when choosing activities for Table Time, you do want something fun and interesting and developmentally challenging enough to capture attention, but you do not want something that will lead to feelings of frustration. When this has happened, I have altered or adapted my materials or even just put an activity away and shifted gears. You can't win 'em all! I try to keep my expectations reasonable as well. What I think my son my LOVE may not interest him at all, and what I think he will pass right over might become his new favorite thing to do. Keeping an open mind and an ounce of humor to go with it goes a long way.

Below is a small sampling of some of our recent Table Time activities. Future Table Time posts will include one or more activities at a time, sometimes theme related. Enjoy & happy playing!

During our dinosaur theme, I FINALLY found a use for that funny faux grass bottle drying rack (which I HAD to have but never used). I thought my son wouldn't get too into this one, but he LOVED it. He had more success with the smaller tongs (purchased in a 4 pack at a Dollar Tree) and still needed to use his "helper" hand to work with the dinosaurs, but loved trying to use the tongs to pick them up and set them up in the "Jurassic Jungle." 

I HATE surprising loud noises, so we had to stop playing Jenga here! But I found a fun use for those perfectly sized wooden blocks. My little one liked this so much, I ended up storing it in the pencil case and leaving it out on his toy shelf for him to revisit throughout our dinosaur themed weeks at Mommy & Me Camp.

Playdough Silly Faces--a great addition to an "All About Me" theme, "Feelings" theme or any rainy day! This one is great for older children as well.

During a gardening theme, this parts of a plant playdough exploration was a big hit, The "seeds" are dried black beans, the "stems" are pipe cleaners and I took apart some artificial flowers from the discount store for flowers and leaves. This happens to be homemade playdough that I scented with lavender oil, but any playdough or clay can be used.

After a long and happy life on our dining room table, these beautiful flowers were on their way out, but not before my toddler got a chance to play and explore with them. He loved using the magnifying glasses and pulling apart the petals. Older children could also use scissors or tweezers.