Quiet Book Pages 14 and 15: Write a Letter and Mailbox

Although Owen won't be able to use this page for a while, I thought it would be a fun one to add in.

Pages 14 and 15: Write a Letter and Mailbox

Teaches: Writing, drawing, how mail works

My inspiration for these pages came from here. She gives a free pattern that I absolutely love! I didn't use all of her pattern, but it was a perfect starting point. 

Here are my pages:

I added the whole left page as a place to store pens or pencils, paper, and envelopes. I also added the grass on the right page just for fun. I love it!

In her pattern for the mailbox, she includes a pattern for little envelopes. I loved the idea of having reusable ones, so I used it. 

Velcro is used to keep them closed when "mail" is inside each envelope. 

I love this pattern because it looks like a real mailbox. It is made so there is a pocket and the mail can actually go into the mailbox. A ribbon and button hold the mailbox closed.  

A button and grommet are used to allow the flag to move up and down for when there is and isn't mail. So cute!

I used some hand stitching and some machine stitching for these pages and I think they turned out great! I can't wait for Owen to understand enough to send and receive mail. 

~K.A.N.

Quiet Book Page 12: Tic-Tac-Toe

Most of the pages I put in my quiet book are educational. This is one of the pages that isn't so much for learning as it is for fun. 

Page 12: Tic-Tac-Toe

Teaches: Matching, taking turns, winning and losing

My inspiration for this page came from here. Pinterest almost always had several ideas for each page I wanted to make and this was my favorite tic-tac-toe page. Bonus: it came with a pattern!!

Here is how my page turned out: 

I chose 3 colors to use - black, cream, and red. I then cut out the pattern pieces and stitched everything together. In the pops and podge page, she used fabric glue to hold most of her things together. I stitched all of mine. All of the black as well as the velcro is machine stitched, while the X's and O's are hand stitched to the circles. 

There is a pocket in the top left corner of the page for the extra pieces to be stored. Each piece has velcro on the back and there is velcro sewn in each square on the grid. 

I sewed the letters on by machine and it was surprisingly easy and turned out great! 

When making this quiet book, I was getting tired and overwhelmed. I was thinking about which pages to eliminate and this was a contender. My husband didn't want me to because then he wouldn't have a page to play with; so it ended up staying. I am so happy with how it turned out. 

~K.A.N.

Quiet Book Pages 4 and 5: Numbers and Math

Of all the pages I did, I think these took the most amount of time. It was worth the extra effort of hand stitching to get the end result though!

Pages 4 and 5: Numbers and Math

Teaches: numbers and counting, order, addition, subtraction

My inspiration for these pages came from all over. After looking at several quiet books, I knew I wanted a page with numbers. I initially wasn't planning on doing a math page, but I just couldn't help myself. Math is my favorite, so why not add it in? 

This is what I came up with: 

For the numbers, I found a web page that had numbers as coloring pages. I zoomed the screen to be the right size, then traced them by holding plain white paper right up to the computer screen and tracing (lightly) using a pencil. 

I picked the three colors of felt I wanted to use, cut the numbers out of the paper and used those as my pattern to cut the numbers out of felt. 

With each number cut out, I then cut out black rectangles to be just larger than the numbers. I used a blanket stitch to hand sew each number onto the black. That is the part that took forever. I love how they turned out though, so I'm glad I took the time to do it that way. 

I then cut nine more black rectangles, machine stitched one side of velcro on each, then machine stitched those to the page. I then realized that if I didn't want machine stitching to show through my numbers (which I didn't) I was going to have to hand stitch the other side of velcro on the back of the number rectangles. I knew I would rather take the time now to do the work and have it be exactly how I wanted, so I did. 

For the math page, a similar approach was taken. I made a whole second set of numbers (plus a 0) to allow every possible addition and subtraction formula of the numbers 1-9 to be done. The plus, minus, and both equal signs were hand stitched onto the page. 

As with the numbers page, these numbers velcro on and off. A large pocket was sewn to the bottom of the page to hold the extra numbers. 

So far, these have been two of Owen's favorite pages. He may not know what they are actually for, but he loves the velcro and the bright colors!

~K.A.N.