Art of toddler reading

Books. With the invention of the ipad and e-readers books seem to be going out of fashion. Well the fact that ebooks now cost way more than regular books is another topic and possibly a sign of the resurgence of the beloved paperbacks. That said there’s a demographic that will always love traditional books, babies and kids.

From her early months the Little Monkey has always been a fan of books. Here she is reading by the beach in Cavendish, PEI. Clearly she’s taking a few clues from her dad! Initially we pushed the famous baby books, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Farm Animals, Goodnight Moon e.t.c. As the months progressed we’ve seen her favourite selections switch around and now at 20 months this toddler has held on to a few faves. I’m sure every toddler has a different set of books they gravitate to but here’s some that have continued to charm, educate and bail us out of some tricky situations.

This book was a gift from her godmother and has been great in giving us activity ideas for each month. I suppose the giftee knew well as she’s a child psychologist. It has simple things like putting beads in a bottle but then it also provides some guidance on each developmental stage and which senses we should be stimulating for that month. When I’m all drained out of impromptu ideas, the book is a great idea prompter. Simple actions using household items.

 These TINY books are awesome to sneak in your purse and pull out at restaurants and on planes. We’ve had these on us for months now and because there’s a wide selection of them, she’s still enthralled by them. They’re only about 2 inches around and about 4 pages tops, but the pictures and pages have her ‘reading’ through these a couple times at a go. I have no idea where these books are from but I’m on the hunt as they’re great gifts and stocking stuffers!

 I had never heard of Fancy Nancy until a friend of mine… (with two boys mind you) gifted these to us. The Little Monkey was about a year at the time and she absolutely loved having these read to her. Now a few months later, this collection is her favourite. She’s always reaching out to them and the lovely box they came in. She’s got “oo la la” down pretty well.