Tutorial : Quiet Busy Book - Part 4

Lock and Tic Tac Toe

This page is intended to work on fine motor skills (insert and turn key, put lock on ring) and have a fun game!

Materials
felt or interfaced fabric for the back of the page.
interfaced felt for the chest to hold pieces
ribbon for the tic tac toe grid and to hold the lock on the page.
ring for the lock to loop on.
felt pieces for the game.

1) prepare the "Treasure Chest" I interfaced some felt so it had extra strength and then cut it into two pieces, a lid and a body. Cut a hole in the lid suitable for the key ring. Next sew along all edges to provide extra enforcement. Stitch down on the page. Do the bottom first, remember to leave the top open! Then just stitch the top of the lid. Hand sew the ring on.
2) Prepare the lock. Securely attach ribbon to the lock and key. I tied and glued it. Tie knots in the lengths of ribbon remaining to ensure it wont' get tangled our caught.
3) Cut ribbon of suitable lengths for the Tic Tac Toe grid and sew it down.
4) Cut pieces of contrasting felt to use as Tic Tac Toe pieces.
5) When we get to sewing the pages together, don't forget to insert the ends of the lock and key ribbons into the seam of the page!

Magnet Page

This page is intended to explore magnetism and fine motor control.

Materials
felt or interfaced fabric for the back of the page.
Clear plastic table cloth (same stuff as the photo page)
Magnets
Items to go under the plastic. I put metal buttons, a fishing lure and a wooden sheep with a magnet on the back. The sheep seemed to work the best.
Ribbon
Edging material (I chose felt)

1) It is extremely frustrating and moderately ugly to sew directly on to the plastic stuff. I strongly suggest having ribbon or felt or fabric between the presser foot and the plastic.
2) Cut a square of plastic table cloth stuff 10-11 inches square.
3) Cut edging material to go around the full edge of the plastic.
4) Lay it out and sew it down on 3 sides.
5) Sew some ribbon on top of the plastic to provide a bit of a maze. I did it pretty simplistically (just two little lines), but you can be much more elaborate.
6) Insert your items and sew it shut!
7) The magnet wand needs to be made semi child resistant. How you go about doing this will depend on the magnets you choose. I piled the magnets up with glue between each layer and then tied ribbon around the whole works with extra glue. I also chose not to sew this into the page edge and just put it in the ring. That way it can easily be removed if it's damaged or deemed not to be appropriate yet.

I purposely put these pages next to each other to encourage magnet use on things like the lock.