By now a lot of you may know that our little one is homeschooled. Many people have always been asking how we keep our little one "advanced", you can follow us on this series and take some reference on some of the toys, books and stimulation we use so that you can add on to your own curriculum as well.
I have heard about busy books for the longest time and frankly I couldn't really quite understand the appeal it would have on a child. After watching my son tinkle around with them, I was like wow this thing works. He actually sat for a good 30 mins, ignoring Cocomelon (Well done!) and was just focused on interacting with some of the pages.
Our Busy Book is from Hi Buy Mama, they basically have 2 versions. One was the Friendly Hedgehog Toddler Busy Toddler ($59.90) which was for the younger kids and the other was the Otterly Fun Busy Book ($76.90). We decided that the Busy Book was more appropriate for him even though he was not even 3 years old because he has pretty much grasped most of the key skills in the hedgehog book.
At about the 22 months old mark, I was planning to inculcate in him a teeth brushing routine, ease him into toilet training, identify colours and emotions effectively. And I felt the Otter Book could help me achieve these aims better. Tip: As parents, I feel we should take the recommended age as a guide and not a firm rule. We need to know what is the current development level of our child and find resources that suits them.
Our LO definitely had preference on some pages over the others. His favorite include the fishing, teeth brushing and the zipper. If you are training your kid to brush your teeth, I would strongly recommend an interactive book like this. Our LO got so excited about brushing the Hippo's teeth that it was quite effortless to re-start him to brush his own. (Yes, I lost momentum once when I was in first trimester.)
The fishing page with the magnets intrigued him the most. To date, he would still be fishing and "feeding" us his catch. He still haven't quite understand the like and unlike poles of the magnet and would occassionally be frustrated how come he can't catch the fish at times. We have also mastered 2 colours - pink and orange (both in English and Mandarin) and have figured out emotions (this was mainly to reenacting more than the book). Overall, we are pretty pleased with the book and would deemed this as a value for money "enrichment programme".