The Napping House Tot Bag

My next tot bag is based on the book The Napping House by Audrey Wood. This is a cute book about a napping family who is startled awake. We own the board book version of it, so I thought it would make good tot bag for the following school year.

These are the activities I included in my Napping House Tot Bag....

I made blocks using an old Jenga game that I had. Each block has one of the characters of the book. Kaleb will stack them and, of course, knock them down. I found this idea, as well as the printable pictures which I colored at The Art Annex. I made the bed from duplos. I also made a sensory game where I cut out circles of cardboard and added different types of sensory materials such as sandpaper, corduroy, tinsel, fleece, the scratchy part of the velcro.... I made two of each so we can match the different materials. At first, we will do this with the pieces out in the open but I would like to put the matching pieces into a bag and see if Kaleb can match them just using his sense of touch.

I sewed a silly looking felt mouse and created a game - Where's my mouse? There are all  versions of this game going around the internet. I mainly want to use this to teach Kaleb his basic colors. I may only start with two of the houses as to not overwhelm him. The mouse idea came from Craft Jr.

I am a quilter at heart and while working with this book, I kept thinking textures and quilts. I sewed this together very quickly in the fashion of the rag letters, no binding or quilting. I made shapes using different textures of fabrics and all of the items I had on hand. I chose a silky material, fleece, corduroy, flannel. Each shape has velcro on the backside so Kaleb can rip it off the main quilt piece and stick it back on. This will be good to work with shapes as well as textures.

In the beginning of the book, it is raining and at the end, there is a rainbow. I laminated a pom pom rainbow sheet to use with our cookie sheet magnet board (on the back is the N for Napping House magnet page from MakingLearning Fun) and I made a felt rainbow that Kaleb can take apart and put back together. Right now, the felt rainbow arches are just placed on top of each other but I am thinking of either using a button or snap for Kaleb to practice.

I am hoping to create one more literature based tot bag for the month of May but I am planning to be back in September with some new tot bag creations. These have been fun to put together and I am looking forward to using these with Kaleb for "Tot" school. I hope that these encourage you to create your own and if you have ideas or requests, please contact me.

The Napping House Links

One Fine Day the idea for the felt rainbow came from here.

The Art Annex - the Napping House blocks idea complete with jpeg that you can print to make your own.

Craft Jr. - the felt mouse pattern that I used to create my Where's Mouse? game.

Making Learning Fun - this site has a lot of ideas for this book, a magnet page, story stick idea, felt board, check it out.

Kiz Club - has patterns that you can use for felt boards or even downsize them for your blocks. I did this originally but the Grandma block required two blocks so I went with the other site.

Making Learning Fun rainbow magnet pages.

1plus1plus1equals1 - rainbow tot pack if you would like to do more rainbow activities.

I Can Teach My Child great idea of a peek-a-boo house using the plastic flip lids of wipes containers, I would have done this but I don't have the lids. I finally bought some wipes with these lids and when they are done, I will create this will pictures of family behind the doors.

No Time For Flashcards this looks so much fun, a rainbow gelatin sensory bin, am I brave enough....maybe when the time comes to use this tot bag.

All Join In this is where I got the idea for the sensory game, she used bottle caps for hers.

Engaging Toddler Activities another set of magnet pages, another rainbow page here.

The Iowa Farmer's Wife where is mouse felt game idea can be found here.

The printable of the color houses is a Mailbox file.