'When I Grow Up' Activity Book
I have fond memories from my childhood of being entranced by my fabric "Busy Book". I revisited its activity-filled pages time and time again, and it was such a prized possession for me that I still have it to this day. My recollections of how engaging and enjoyable I found my activity book as a child were my inspiration for choosing the 'When I Grow Up' Activity Book as part of our Montessori Child collection.
This delightful fabric activity book encourages hands-on exploration while also inspiring imagination. Each page is centred around a different potential occupation, with an associated activity for the child to work on. The jobs include a mail carrier, astronaut, famer, chef, builder, artist and fire fighter. All of these are presented as entirely gender neutral, encouraging all children to visualise themselves in a variety of possible jobs! As the child's hands busily work on the fine motor tasks, they can also think and talk about these occupations and their associated roles and responsibilities.
The pages offer opportunities for children to practice and refine their fine motor dexterity as well as their hand-eye coordination and Practical Life skills. As they work through the book they will buckle, zip, velcro, button and pop - as well as using logic and problem solving to match by colour or number and to make associations between pages such as harvesting the vegetables from the farm and using them to cook in the pot!
'When I Grow Up' is cleverly self-contained in a zip-up book with a handle for your child to carry. It's portable nature and its ability to encourage calm and quiet concentration makes it ideal for situations like car rides, or extended travel on trains or planes, as well as other settings where patient and polite waiting is important.
The 'When I Grow Up' Activity Book has been integral to help keeping our daily life 'device-free' for my own toddler. We choose not to use screens or devices to occupy or distract him when we're out and about, so the Activity Book is an absolutely ideal alternative. We use it at restaurants or cafes, in waiting rooms and more. It has really assisted me as a parent in balancing my desire to avoid devices with the practical reality of needing to keep my little one calm, quiet and occupied in certain social settings. Every parent will make their own decisions about devices, and I'm not suggesting that you should avoid them if you find them a helpful and healthy part of your overall family life, but if you are looking to minimise the time your child spends with screens then the 'When I Grow Up' Activity Book is a really helpful tool.