Create your own toddler busy book – step-by-step tutorial
It was lockdown. I had to homeschool two boys in two different years and I had brutal morning sickness with my fourth. My anxiety was at dangerous levels and my busy third baby had just started walking and doing all the dangerous things that new walkers do when they discover their feet – and climbing (and eating buttons) – for the first time.
I simply didn’t have the energy to ‘handle’ any of the kids. But when my toddler’s first word was ‘Peppa’ I knew I had to do something about the excessive screentime I had dumped on her during those very trying times. It was probably one of the worst times in my parenting life, (only second to when I had caught the norovirus from my then 15-month-old and nursed my newborn while I lived by the toilet.)
Now with four children; a baby, a toddler, a tween and a teen, I need to be armed with screen-free tools (like some montessori-style toddler quiet books and a baby quiet book) when things just get a bit much (I’m saying this but when isn’t it too much with four kids?)
I set up 365daysofnoscreens.com and created a toddler busy book just before our half-term trip to North Cyprus so I can occupy my toddler on the 4 1/2 hour plane journey (we forgot the bag full of quiet book ideas for 2-year-old crazy toddlers at home, complete with zippers, buckles and textured fabric, but that’s by-the-by).
So now, when I’m at a loss at how to occupy my toddler, I either put her on a bike or i shove the kids quiet book at her, help her play with it for a few minutes, then get on with other things. At the time of writing this I was dealing with a teething baby who wouldn’t let me go (we call her Piranha Preston because she used to attach herself with teeth and pincers when I didn’t give her enough attention and when I breastfed!)
So, let me introduce you to the best toddler busy book in the house!
THE TODDLER BUSY BOOK!
It took me three days to create the quiet book for kids on Canva, but the template is done and I’m passing on the learning activities to you! If you don’t know what Canva is or how to create quiet books for kids, then don’t worry, I’ve got a video for you with some snaps here and I’m going to detail the sections below too.
BUY YOUR CANVA TEMPLATE FOR THE TODDLER BUSY BOOK HERE!
So together we’re going to create a learning binder busy book for 2-year-old to 4-year-old kiddies which can also double up as a bit of a sensory book thanks to the little hook and loop dots we’ll be using to affix the sticky parts onto the book.
What will you need for the Toddlers Busy Book?
Things you’ll need for this activity are:
- The toddler busy book Canva template which you can purchase for just £12.99 here or on Etsy here*
- A free Canva account* (you’ll need a Pro account to access pro elements, but you can use the toddler busy book template with just a free account. You can access your 30-day free trial to try out the Pro Canva version here* if you want to take a look)
- A printer that can print out decent images (I use my trusty Epson EcoTank 7700* because it is so economical. More on that in a moment.)
- A laminator (I use this one* because it has a guillotine and you’ll need a guillotine to cut the bits out. The set also includes some A4 laminator pouches, a hole punch, some string, and ring binders, so it’s perfect for this project)
- At least 45 Laminator pouches*
- Something to round the edges. A corner-edge paper cutter is included in the above laminator set but something like this* would do because those laminated edges are sharp!
- Hook and loop dots* to stick the parts onto the activity book
- A clear pencil case/pouch to hide the bits – I used an organza pouch, but something like this* is much better.
- A hole punch – You get a single hole punch with the above laminator, but any hole punch* will do. I would actually recommend you get a hole punch that punches two holes, as it’s more accurate when binding the book together.
- Ring binders. You’ll get different-sized ring binders in the above laminator pack, but I would suggest getting ring binders which have an open and close mechanism because keyring clips are difficult to manipulate around the laminated document. And buy on the larger side too. These* or these* are better than the keyring binders I used.
- A dry marker pen. These* are great as they have erasers at the end and last quite a long time.
- Piece of string to attach the pen. Some brown cord is included in the above laminator set, but you can always get any kind of string. You don’t need much. These* will do.
Shopping list
I haven’t got time for all of this. Can you just give me the PDF please?
Sure! But it won’t be personalised and you kinda need the interactive pages. You will have access to the toddler busy book printables PDF version when you buy the Canva template, although I would thoroughly recommend at least amending the Canva template version so it’s personalised and then downloading it as a PDF to print. I show you how to do that here.
But, 50 pages!
’50 pages to print out? Are you having a giraffe!?’ (or ‘laugh’ in cockney rhyming slang for those of you who didn’t catch that). My answer to you, my friend, is, well, it’s 25 pages because you’ll be printing the pages front and back. But also it’s actually 45 pages, so 16 pages front and back and then an extra 13 pages for the sticker parts. But, yeah, semantics, I get it.
To be honest, you can’t really enjoy this book if you don’t print it out, so it might be better to think about this toddler quiet book as more of an investment in your quality time and sanity. Also, the point is to get your child off the screens and build on their cognitive skills, so you kinda have to print it out.
What are 45 pages when you can have that cup of tea you always wanted? Or get on with another task on your to-do list? Or, spend quality time with your toddler?
Do you just want to lie on the couch without a toddler hanging off you? (I hear you! Make the book, throw it at the toddler, then lie down – you deserve it).
Can you do it for me and send me the finished book?
I’ve stopped doing that for a while because it takes me ages. But I’ll let you know if and when I will ever create and sell them again.
What does the Toddler Busy Book include?
Busy books, especially busy books for toddlers, are great because they do what they intend to set out to do – they keep toddlers busy and they build on the toddler’s fine motor skills!
This book can also double up as a great quiet book for toddlers because guess what? It keeps them quiet!
This busy book for toddlers is action-packed with tons of activities to keep your toddler/preschool child entertained for ages (I don’t want to say hours because toddlers’ concentration spans are short and sharp, but I’ll have you know that my then 2 1/2-year-old spent at least 20 minutes just taking all the stickers off and putting them back on again before she even attempted the activities in the book.
So I’m talking about looooong entertainment value – perfect for long car trips, or at least enough time to make yourself a mug of tea and enjoy some biscuits (or, in my case, an entire pack of Jaffa cakes while I check my emails and deal with Piranha Preston.)) FYI – bonus points for getting a young relative (like the girls’ brothers) to watch over them while they play for even more engaged activity time!
BONUS BENEFIT – Babies love these books too!
My then 1-year-old also got involved, but she was more interested in pulling off the stickers, much to my toddler’s dismay. There may have been some arguments afoot but at least it occupied both my babies so I could drink the tea I just made for #fiveminutespeace.
I’ll be making a busy book for baby (well a busy book for 1-year-old babies, but younger babies can enjoy ripping open the stickers too), so please watch this space if you’ve been looking for quiet book ideas for 1-year-old babies. I’ve been searching high and low for quiet books for babies and I didn’t even realise that my baby just wanted to use my toddler’s book. So, I’ll be making something similar.
Also, if you’re looking for more toddler busy book ideas, stay tuned, as I’ve caught the Canva template/laminator bug and I’m making a whole load of quiet books for toddlers.
Let’s dive in!
Step one – get the Canva template
The template is available here* or here. You also get a non-personalised PDF version too if you can’t be bothered with the fuss and you just want to print it out. But Canva is forever free and so easy to use, so I’d strongly suggest you just download Canva here*, make use of the 30-day trial to try out the Pro version and get to work personalising your template before downloading as a PDF and printing. You can always cancel your Canva account afterwards, but I bet you won’t. It’s so good!
Step two – personalise the book in Canva
We’re starting now, so make sure you’re ready with all your bits from the list above. Also, watch the video here or follow along below. If you have kids and you’re wondering how you’re going to do this project with them around, now is a good time to stick them on the phone keep them occupied with a fulfilling activity, so you can get on with it.
Front cover – add your child’s name
So, with your purchase*, you should have received a ‘thank you PDF’. I’m assuming you’ve chosen the Canva template route as it’s pretty self-explanatory to just download the PDF and print.
The front cover can be personalised in Canva. You can also change the images, but you’ll only have access to the free graphics. If you want to go pro, which is only £10.99 a month, (and I thoroughly recommend you try it with the 30-day trial) then a whole array of amazing graphics open up to you. Link here to Canva* if you’d like to take a look:
Personalise the tracing part of the activity
Teach your toddler how to write their name by removing the letters you don’t need and adding the letters in their name. It’s super easy to do this. I will show you how here in Canva.
You also have the option to spell their name here in Canva (don’t worry, it’s easy) and then you can amend the page at the back where you get to cut out the pieces.
The rest of the book can stay the same
Although feel free to change all the elements – the template is now yours! All I ask is you don’t share it around and sell it off as your own. Canva actually has the same rules, so please check them out here as they apply to my stuff too.
Does your child have a particular obsession? Do they prefer a particular colour? The beauty is you can change all the elements now to match your child’s preference.
Remember, with a Canva pro account for £10.99 a month, you’ll have many more graphics and elements to choose from, but you can get away with using the free account.
So what do we have in the book?
Tracing activities
Tracing activities, which you’ll get in a lot of Montessori books, are great for teaching toddlers fine motor skills and focus. It’s a great way to hone in on the pincer grip and help your toddler gain the strength to hold the pen for longer periods. It also improves concentration skills as well as strengthens hand-eye coordination.
Numbers
Your toddler should have by now been introduced to numbers. You can use the number activity in the book to not only help your toddler count from one to ten but also have a go at writing them using the prompts in the book. My toddler loves doing this, although it looks like scribbles right now. I know muscle memory is taking place as we go through this activity again and again, so she will eventually improve. No rush though – they’re still so diddy!
Counting
Help your toddler understand different ways of counting and introduce them to problem-solving math! This part has some awesome stickers which help your toddler match the numbers to the apples and the written versions. Again, they may be too young to understand the words or even numbers past ten (we go up to 23 in this book), it will be stored in their memory somewhere and it’ll make it easier for them to access the counting information when they are old enough to process the numbers.
Dot to dots is also great for learning and counting numbers – and I’ve got just the thing for you! The Ultimate Dot-to-Dot Dinosaur Colouring Book for Kids* contains over 100 dot-to-dot colouring sheets for dino fans and ranges from 5 to 100 dots, so your preschooler can learn to count to 100 with this traditional but very fun and engaging game!
Click here to buy The Ultimate Dot-to-Dot Dinosaur Colouring Book for Kids*
Alphabet
Then we have the fun alphabet game! This part has stickers and your toddler will love matching the right letters. Go through what each of the images is and you can even introduce phonics, for example, /v/ for Violin rather than ‘vee’ or /b/ for banana rather than ‘bee’ if that makes sense.
I give you some activities to help your toddler trace the letters of the alphabet too!
Introduce your toddler to writing the alphabet too with these tracing letters prompts. My toddler may not be there yet, but it’s also a great way to sing the alphabet with her and just get her to give it a good go.
Interested in enhancing your toddler/preschooler’s letter tracing and writing skills? Then check out my book, ‘The Ultimate Dinosaur Alphabet Tracing and Writing Colouring Book*’ which contains 140 pages of letter writing and tracing activities to engage your preschooler – and get them off the screens!
Click here to buy The Ultimate Dinosaur Alphabet Tracing and Writing Colouring Book from Amazon now*
Shapes
My daughter loved the shape activity and I was pretty impressed to learn that she also knew shapes like hexagons and nonagons by counting the right number of sides. I will add to this activity with more elaborate shapes, as it seems she absorbs them like a sponge!
Again, a shape activity, this time with the more elaborate shapes. She had fun trying to trace around the shapes, albeit not quite hitting the lines.
Colours
My daughter learned colours quite early on so loved calling out the colours as she matched the shapes. This is another sticker activity and lots of fun too.
Emotions
I wasn’t aware at the time of making this page that emotions are great for children who sometimes may struggle to read the right emotion on people’s faces. So it’s important to teach kids quite early on how to read people’s expressions and gauge what they might be feeling. So not only did we match the right stickers to the right emotions, but we also tried to express how each emotion would look on our faces, labelling clearly whether we were trying to make an angry or a happy face, for example. Perfect for emotional growth and building on a child’s natural curiosity for expression!
Days and months
We’re not quite there with learning all the days of the week or months of the year, but my toddler is understanding that different days have different names and slowly but surely, the concept of time. So this activity is a good introductory lesson into just getting your toddler’s head around the fact that time goes on and so do the days of the week and months of the year. You’ll find these activities in most preschool themes for little learners.
Weather
In the UK, we regularly talk about the weather and it’s no different with my toddler when I take her out every day. ‘Oh, look it’s sunny today!’ or ‘Oh no, it’s raining again!’. This activity reinforces what my toddler and I already talk about.
Parts of the body
In the video, you’ll see the body is a little different as I used Canva Pro elements, but the one above works just as well. In this activity, we’ve cut out the different parts of the body and it just helps my toddler understand what each part is called. She learned this bit quite early, but for babies, it’s a great activity too.
The five senses
In this activity, we talk about the five senses, which is also great for mindfulness toddler activities when your toddler is bouncing off the walls. What can you taste right now? What can you see with your eyes? Can you smell the air? Can you hear the cars whizzing by? When your toddler rightly utilises one of his/her senses, they can match the sticker part. Also, when they’re at that stage, they can also practice tracing the letters to the words to reinforce what they’ve learned.
Animals
My daughter loves animals and constantly asks me about what each animal’s parents are. So I created an activity which describes the adult animal and their young. In fact, I didn’t know a baby rabbit was called a kit or kitten, so I learned something too!
In the first book I created, I added a whale, a crab and an octopus which my husband pointed out didn’t go into a farmland’s pond! So I took them out and specified this page as a farm animals’ page. I added some more farm animals and cut them out so my daughter could match them to the picture. We also shouted out the parts as she matched them.
Jobs
This activity is a great addition to the book because my toddler and I talked about each of the jobs and I found out my daughter loves hair and makeup. So we discussed owning a business where she could work on hair and makeup, which has been successful for a lot of other people, too.
She was quite interested to learn more about what each job meant and so we spent more time on this activity. It’s important to note that the Canva free version doesn’t offer many female options, so the selections above are based on what was available rather than whether they were male or female. The Pro version has more female examples. This is just to suit the fact that this book is for my daughter.
Vehicles
My daughter’s favourite vehicle is an Excavator after the infamous Blippi song, Excavator (which we sing on repeat in our household!) so I had an idea to add a ‘Vehicles’ section for her. The above are free Canva images, but the Pro has a LOT more options available.
Dinosaurs!
My daughter is obsessed with dinosaurs and actually now knows all the names to the dinosaurs above (very impressive) so I cut out all the dinosaurs and she had fun matching the sticky parts as she called out their names. You can add whatever animal you want to this activity, but the dinosaur page suited my daughter very well.
Section where you cut all the pieces!
So, now all the pages are done and personalised, you have the last 16 pages which are designed for you to print, laminate, and cut out. Go through the instructions provided in the file after you’ve purchased the Canva template on how to download and print each of these pages.
Lamination time!
My favourite part of this whole activity was the lamination! Everything apart from the last 16 pages should be printed front to back and each page will be placed inside a lamination pouch, ready to be laminated.
Once each of the pages has been laminated and the sticky parts in the last 16 pages have been cut out. You can go through the document and add the hook and loop dots to where you intend to stick the sticky parts, which were an instant hit with the kids as they could play with just those parts if they wanted to. It was even a massive hit for the tween and teen too!
Hole-punch the documents and bind them using the clip rings as mentioned in the list above. Hole punch the corner of the first page so you can add a piece of string which will attach the dry marker pen. Use a dry marker pen with an eraser so your toddler can wipe off their markings and use this activity book again and again.
The finished document should look like this!
So, there you go! Your very own personalised Toddler Busy Book, perfect for busy toddlers and even busy babies! It’s a lovely book to keep them quiet and they are relatable activities so make sure you engage what they learn with the outside world too, so it makes sense.
I put a lot of thought into this brilliant book and when you laminate it has incredible quality and enough durability to withstand toddler fingers.
Any questions, pop in the comments below but here are the links again so you can get started:
- Click here* to download Canva and get your free 30-day trial to try out Canva Pro
- Click here* to buy the Canva template from Etsy
- Click here to buy the Canva template on this website
- Click here to watch the video
And make sure to stay updated via our Facebook page and Instagram for any new product launches and I always welcome feedback!
*Links marked with a ‘*’ are affiliate links which means I may earn a small commission if you click through to buy at no extra cost to you.
