Babies are masters at one thing: putting everything in their mouth. This is because they use their taste senses to get a feel of everything. If it doesn't taste bad, it is heaven!
Books need to be full of different textures that infants can touch, smell, see, hear and of course do the taste test. Most baby books are made out of cloth because they can be easily washed. Usually, every page consists of bright colors to see, something they can feel (different fabrics/papers/sealed liquids), something they can hear (rattles/bells/squishy sounds), something (quite rare) they can smell.
A lot of cloth books are created by the company Lamaze and can be found at baby stores, Toys-R-Us and Walmart.
Here is a list of books that are great for infants to read to. These titles are not always found in cloth-form; only board style. Make sure your babies don't put these in their mouth for a taste test!
Animal Crackers - by Nancy Dyer
Baby Faces - by Margaret Miller
Baby! Talk! - by Penny Gentieu
Big Fat Hen - by Keith Baker
Bounce Bounce Bounce - by Kathy Henderson
Clap Hands - by Helen Oxenbury
First Steps - by Lee Wardlaw
How a Baby Grows - by Nola Buck
Hush Little Baby - by Sylvia Long
I See - by Rachel Isadora
Itsy Bitsy Spider - by Iza Trapani
Moo, Baa, La La La! - by Sandra Boynton
Mother Goose Magic - by Kay Chorao
Nighty-Nighty - by Dawn Apperley
Of Colors and Things - by Tana Hoban
Pat the Bunny - by Dorothy Kunhardt
Pickle and the Box - by Lynn Breeze
Sleepytime Rhyme - by Remy Charlip
What's on My Head? - by Margaret Miller
Who Says Moo? - by Ruth Young
Yellow Hat, Red Hat - by Basia Bogdanowicz
I love texture books. I know they are great with the little ones but when I taught a behavioural special ed class, I found the texture items really calmed the kids down. I made a deck of cards with velvet and other napped fabrics and the kids loved them. I had to through them out at the end of the year because they got so dirty (and I had pasted the velvet on cardboard) so they couldn't be washed. I would just sew cards with fabric now.
ReplyDeleteThere are also some great sewing patterns for people who want to make their own. And now that I think about it, you could probably make some texture books from other materials too. Here is the link to one such craft book:
http://www.simplicity.com/p-1986-crafts.aspx
I love the sewing idea! One time when I was doing a placement at a daycare, I actually took different kinds of fabric and textures and made a baby blanket. I had put it on the floor and the babies loved to crawl over it all the time. It was a hit! Thanks for the website Nothy!
DeleteI found a website you may like. It gives instructions on how to make your own tactile book.
Deletehttp://www.clearvisionproject.org/tactile.asp
This is the third time I have tried to post this. So I am not sure if there will be multiple showings of this post or not....There is an excellent book called Tails by Matthew Van Fleet. It has animal tails that the readers can touch. This is a light-hearted, texture rich book for baby. Your child will enjoy the playful animals and will be mesmerized when touching all of the differnt animal tails. I had to photocopy the title and post it on our daycare website because so many parents were asking for it to buy their own copy. I just found this blog and I love it. Very good Paige.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for sharing that book!! And thank you for visiting and liking my blog!
DeleteMy mom buys them for baby gifts. You can put some of them in the bathtub too. They dry easily.
ReplyDeleteYou're absolutely right, the cloth books are great for the bathtub. Also the books that come in those plastic-type textures; they are so much fun for babies and toddlers.
Delete