Goodnight Moon Tot Bag

Another one of our favorite books in this house is Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. I recently acquired this book in board book form at a book sale here. We already own the paperback version. I love the board book - they are practically indestructible....I say practically. My son loves to chew books and even though the edges get frayed, we can still read them. My next tot bag is based on this book. I am having fun creating these tot bags and I hope that Kaleb will have fun playing with them. These are the activities that I planned....

I started with a moon and star button snake that I made. I cut simple shapes of moons and stars from yellow and orange felt. Then I sewed two large buttons on the end of yellow ribbon. Kaleb will practice his buttoning skills by placing the shapes on the ribbon. We can also practice patterning with this activity. I made a story cube using graphics from the story. We can use this to find the characters in the story, practice rolling a die etc... I made some mini bottle caps with moon and star stickers. Kaleb will drop these into the bottle for fine motor skill practice. (He loves this activity.)

I made a mini clothesline for him to match the mittens, which are just cut from fun foam. This clothesline is just two skewers stuck into play dough. (I don't have plaster of paris but it might be something to invest in if we are to do other clothes pinning activities.) I found this idea here. An added bonus is that it is portable. I liked the idea from SomeWhat Simple to make a "stress ball" so I added some play dough to a red balloon for Kaleb to squeeze and shape. And, of course, Goodnight Moon would be complete with out a red balloon to play with.

I found a cute moon printable which I printed onto yellow paper, laminated, and punched holes into it for a sewing card. This is a difficult activity for Kaleb but with Mommy's help, we can do it. I also added some pompoms to pick up with tongs and practice spooning ping pong balls (they kinda look like moons- I didn't have white ones) into a ranch container. If this is too hard to do, I might switch to spooning the ping pong balls into bowls. Hope these inspire you to make your own literature based tot bags. My next bag in the works.....Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. If you have any ideas, please let me know.

Goodnight Moon links


Pre-K Pages this is where the idea for the portable clothesline came from.

SomeWhat Simple homemade stress ball for lots of fun.

The Adventures of Bear not pictured here but I plan on creating a Goodnight Moon Sensory bin for Kaleb. She made a great one.

Harper Collins I used this picture for my story cube.

Mother Lode she made story blocks using a book that was damaged. This is a great idea - puzzle blocks but I didn't have a damaged Goodnight Moon book.