Nap Time Activities

The Quiet Busy Book

Nap time sometimes seems a bit long for some of the children in my class; usually because they only sleep for half of the time or less. The children do have books they can read after resting. This helps to keep them occupied while the others sleep. However, it seems that some need to trade their books frequently to stay quietly engaged. I have come up with a solution to help them---a quiet busy book. Often these are sewn books of different activities. Unfortunately, I don't have a sewing machine for this project. Instead I made it all free hand out of construction paper. It took some time, but it has been well worth it. The kids are already asking if I can make more!

The front and back cover were made using construction paper crayons on yellow construction paper. Each page was laminated for durability. To make the pages back to back, they were hole punched and sewn together using a whip-stitch. Three holes were also punched along one side to bind the book via 1.5" rings.

This two page spread has a ladder on each page where each rung has a different number of beads on it. The rungs are made of yarn that were threaded through pinholes. They are secured with both knots in the back and hot glue on the front. The beads encourage counting practice, early math addition and subtraction, and pattern recognition. They also allow fine motor practice by sliding the beads along the rung.

This busy bee activity lets kids help the bee travel to all of the flowers. This helps to build fine motor skills by winding the yarn around each flower. It also promotes critical thinking skills as they try to reverse the path the bee took.

The bee was made using a clip art picture online. The image was duplicated and reflected, so it would be the same on both sides. It was laminated, cut to size, folded in half and secured with double sided tape around the yarn. The yarn was measure by winding it through all the flowers then attached to one page. The flowers are buttons that are held in place using yellow pipe cleaners.

The artist easel page helps children learn colors and builds imagination. Here they can take  a real paintbrush and pretend to paint a beautiful picture!

This is Mr. Potato Head page. The pocket houses all the pieces needed to bring the potato to life. It has the black bowler hat, green cap, blue shoes, red shoes, yellow glasses, regular eyes, sad eyes, angry eyes, ears, nose, mustache, tongue, toothy grin, lips, and arms. It was a lot of fun drawing and creating the pieces for this page.

This book has helped many kids in class contain their wiggles, allowing their friends to nap peacefully. It has aided in making relaxing and productive nap times. I hope to make others soon!