No-Sew Quiet (ish) Book

Late last year, a very dear friend was getting married and asked Sam and I to be in the wedding. We were honored to say the least but the wedding was in Colorado the week before Sam's birthday. That meant that driving was out of the question. That left flying with a two year old as the only option in order to arrive in Colorado in time to enjoy the pre-wedding festivities AND make it home in plenty of time to finish my prep for Sam's party. I was nervous about how he would do on the plane so I'm not going to lie, I WAY over-prepared! I made a TON of little "keep us busy" games. As it turns out, I only needed two games; a lidded cup with a hole in the top and tiny sparkly pom poms to poke through the hole, and this quiet(ish) book. I only add the ish because since we were going to be on an airplane playing with laminated pages, I added Velcro so we didn't lose any pieces.

 

Front Cover

This was a pretty simple page to determine as the front cover. Sam will write him name more than any other word in the English language so no time like the present to begin learning how to spell it!

 

 

 

Page One

We have a Little People school bus that sings a stop and go song which is one of Sam's favorites so I made a stop and go page. He is learning color matching with this page.

 

Page Two

Sam LOVES frogs and was just beginning to show interest in counting to two at this time. I thought we'd practice all the way up to five. 

 

Page Three

Giving toys and treats to our real dogs is always a fun job for Sam so I thought he might like to choose either a soccer ball, Frisbee or bone for this cutie too. Sam named him Spotty.

 

Page Four

I'm not sure if it's in the DNA of little boys or what, but Sam has ALWAYS been interested in things with wheels. I added some special elements to the driving page too make it even more interesting. Column one is just the laminated road so I labeled it "smooth road". Column two has glue stick bumps and is labeled "bumpy road". Column three has strips of sandpaper glued to the road and is labeled "rough road".

 

Page Five

Color and shape matching are fun!

 

Page Six

Sam loves the Itsy Bitsy Spider. He even does a quite lovely heavy metal sounding version of it in the back seat of the car. The spider, sun, and raindrops are all removable and repositionable as with the other pages so we could act out the story.

Back Cover

Of course, I had to add a back cover with a lovey-dovey message. What can I say he's awesome and I dig him!

 

All of the pictures are clip art that I just printed out and laminated. Early last year, I found a great laminator at Aldi for $20. It came with enough laminating sheets that I haven't had to purchase more yet and I laminate A LOT. If you have an Aldi in your area, keep an eye out for their Wednesday circular. They have great, really different, stuff!

 

I'd say I put about 2 hours total into gathering the images, laying the project out, laminating the pages and pictures, and cutting the pieces out once they were laminated. I then hole punched the pages and used two loose ring binders to hold it all together. It's hard to estimate cost because I had all of the supplies but Sam's enjoyment of the finished book means cost wouldn't have mattered to me anyway.

 

Take what your kiddo likes and run with it. One of the best things about this style of entertainment? It's super light and fits right in the carry on without taking up any room at all.

 

A few final notes on traveling on an airplane for the first time with a toddler.

1) Take the car seat with you if you're driving on the other end of the trip. The daily charge from the car rentals is ridiculous. I realize it's kind of a pain but we found a light version that would fit in a big duffel bag if we wanted to check it instead of carrying it. It was only $35 and you can find it HERE.

2) Take a stuffed animal or toy they haven't seen before for the flight out and another for the flight home. Novelty staves off boredom. We chose a Mickey Mouse doll for the ride there and a little monster truck for the ride home.

3) Have snacks!!!!

4) Don't stress as much as I did, it's exhausting and in most cases, unnecessary. Most kids, mine included, mirror back your mood, manner, and disposition. He was calm and had fun when I was calm and had fun.