Let's Stick Together!
The cold and wintry days are upon us and the days are getting dark by mid-afternoon so I've been looking for lots of fun ideas to keep BookBairn entertained whilst stuck indoors. I'm planning lots of baking and crafting in the beginning months of this year (until the baby arrives) but a quick-fix for the moment has been lots of sticker books.
We have amassed a large collection of different sticker book titles over the last few months (thanks to grandparents for these thoughtful gifts!) and BookBairn just loves sitting down together to create her sticker scenes. One of the lovely things about sticker books is that they allow BookBairn and I to play together with a bit of quality time that doesn't involve too much repetition (there's only so many times I can put her duplo characters through a door and tuck them into bed before I get a bit stir crazy) or mummy playing it wrong (when I try to make them do something different)! But we can play stickers for hours! And I'm honestly amazed at how good her instruction following (as well as free-play sticking) is for her age. We started with sticker books just after the summer holidays and even at less than 18 months she understood lots of positional phrases - on, beside, under - and could create scenes that made sense.
The first sticker book we picked up was a Peppa Pig sticker book and part of me wishes we never had! BookBairn had never watched Peppa Pig but it was the most sensible choice in our local bookshop and now we have a little Peppa fan! I have since watched hours of Peppa Pig much to my dismay. But she does love it! We picked up a second Peppa book and she enjoys playing with it because she recognises the characters. She can follow instructions and describe what she is doing - "Peppa eating cake" "Suzy making tea". It has been great for her language development, even if it hasn't been great for Mummy's TV preferences!
We decided to pick up another couple of sticker books that feature her favourite characters due to Peppa's success. Unwisely I bought both online so didn't get a chance to look through them beforehand and unfortunately the Hey
Duggee book is an activity book with a few stickers in it and most of the activities are beyond BookBairn's ability at the moment. I was impressed, however, that while she couldn't spot the difference between the two pictures - she could follow my instructions as to where to stick the 'splats' to show the differences. We made the best of it. The Bing sticker book proved far more successful. She could talk about what the characters were doing - "help Bing tidy up toys" and "Pando have cup of tea, Sula share cake". As I said it's a great way to stimulate chat and discussion with your little one!
I have recently discovered the Usborne sticker book series, which are brilliant! We took the 'Garden' one on holiday with us and BookBairn enjoyed playing with it with all her grandparents. This is my favourite of the books because I adore the illustrations - they are so colourful and clear! You also get loads of stickers for each page spread which is great because they aren't the cheapest so you certainly get good value for money. We have only just started the 'Nature' one and it's great too (though the illustrations don't appeal to me quite so much). I'll definitely be picking up more Usborne sticker books in future.
I picked up a little Finding Dory sticker pad in the supermarket too but it didn't have many stickers in it so I ended up getting some more stickers (also quite cheaply in the supermarket). They may be cheap but they didn't provide quite as much fun! Although, if you follow our blog you will know that BookBairn is a big Nemo fan so she loved this!
We also have some reusable sticker books and these are great too for the main reason that they are reusable. But for the moment, I still think we get good value for money out of the non-reusable stickers. It takes BookBairn half an hour to do two double page spreads and after that she is ready to do something else anyway. So we get lots of use out of them, and, as I mentioned, they provide an invaluable opportunity to play and talk together in a different way than we play with toys or other traditional story books.
Happy Sticking!
Mummy and BookBairn x
I've bought a couple of sticker books for BookBairn and you never quite know what you're getting so these reviews could be useful to others. BookBairn certainly loves putting the stickers into place in the various scenes and will describe what she is doing. She likes it when you say "Good sticking" to her.
ReplyDeleteShe just loves a sticker book but the quality really varies. I think I've learned it's worth paying a little more as you seem to get what you pay for. Though I do also think cheap and throw away when finished is fine too. She loves a bit of praise but equally today I got a "well done mummy, high five" when I 'found' the £1 coin in the trolley! x
DeleteShe certainly gets lots of gun with the sticker books and you're quite right about the learning opportunities when playing with stickers. There are so many ways of stimulating her language development as well as understanding the world around her
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely! Well said! x
DeleteMy youngest two absolutely love sticker books, trouble is I find the stickers all around the house lol. Thanks for sharing with #ReadWithMe
ReplyDeleteFortunately I'm not at that stage yet! x
DeleteSo colourful and a fun way to learn
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely! Thanks for popping over to read!
DeleteOh my goodness mine LOVE a good sticker book. We had an Usborne London one which was fab. Great review as always! #readwithme
ReplyDeleteThe Usborne ones are so good! We need a little restock I think x
DeleteWe love sticker books in our house too. I've managed to contain my 4yo's enthusiasm for sticking them on the walls to only in his bedroom! I love the picture where Bookbairn has stuck cake all over Bing and friends mouths #readwithme
ReplyDeleteHaha! Well spotted! x
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