My Quiet Book

I found a treasure at my parents place this week. It was the little book my mom gave me to play with in church as a child. She called it a quiet book. It's kind of a coincidence that I found it, because I was actually thinking about it not too long ago. It probably came to mind because my little boy can not sit through church quietly for the life of him. I know it's a lot to expect and to make it worse his mommy ALWAYS forgets to pack some toys. So he has to just sit there. That's when I remembered my little quiet book. So today I thought I'd post a few photos and maybe there's a crafty mom or aunt out there that was looking for something just like this!

The book is made of canvas and illustrates several Old Testament events. Creation, the tree of good and evil, Noah's ark, Jacob's dream, Joseph's coat of many colors, Moses in the basket, and the parting of the red sea are stories all shown here. The book is missing a few items, like baby Moses, and I think there were people crossing the red sea that have since been lost; but you get the idea. The book has several different clasps to teach little fingers to manipulate as well as a variety of "pretend play" options. Looking at this I get all kinds of ideas.

Unfortunately, my little boy is starting to get a little old for this kind of book but he still sat down and played a bit with it. But I don't think it would hold his attention for as long as it would a slightly younger child. HOWEVER, Jasper is totally into animals and the Noah's Ark page reminded me of a play set I'd made him on a slow day last summer. Looking at the two I'm sure I was inspired by my memories of this quiet book. So I pulled that out and he played with that for a while. The set I made him was made to hang from suction cup hooks so it could hang in the window. I also made the felt scenes two sided so that he had a choice of backgrounds. One is a night scene on one side and a water scene on the other. The other sheet is for his African animals on one side and has water and ice burgs for his Antarctica and ocean animals. I cut out the animals freehand 'cause it's fun for me but I remember my mother tracing cookie cutters for some of her felt animals. Of course you could create your own templates as well.

So now I have plans to create my own little felt play book for Jasper. I think I'll keeps some of the elements of mine but I'll create more imaginary play scenes since he's at the age that really loves to pretend. But I love the ark with the zipper that was in my little book. A great way of storing the shapes. I think I'll cheat and use Velcro for a few things as well. Once I've completed Jasper's little quiet book I'll post pics and instructions for making one like it. But until then, for all you crafty moms- feel free to copy the photos to create your own version!