Over the past few years busy books have become a popular learning resource to support learning at both home and at school. A good busy book can provide hours of fun educational opportunities, introducing or consolidating key concepts such as colours, numbers, phonics, and writing.

A good busy book does exactly what its name suggests – keeping your child busy and engaged through a series of fun and educational activities.

But with so much out there, how do you choose?

Four quick checks

- Who has made it?
Are they designed by a skilled or qualified person such as a teacher.

- Do the contents look difficult or easy?
You want your child to learn and to gain, but don’t want them to struggle – a busy book with a range of ‘challenge’ is ideal.

- Are there a good range of activities?
Early learning is never just a single thing – a good busy book will cover areas including matching, spelling, counting, categorisation, colours, shapes and pre-writing

- Does it look fun?
Is it colourful? Does it look engaging? You don’t want your child’s first learning experiences to be boring!

What age is the right age?

As parents we all think our children are little superstars, who will be writing novels by the time they turn three! In reality, all our children develop at different rates and on their own timetables.

When I first started using the Pocket Panda nursery learning busy book with my son, Freddie, he had just turned three and that was the perfect age for him. He was physically ready to pick up the pieces and move them with ease, supporting his fine motor control. He also had a good enough attention span to complete the activities.

We have had some customers whose children have benefitted as early two-year-olds, and some whose children have been closer to four.

Broadly speaking, if your child can engage in learning or play activities for a few minutes at a time, then this is a good sign they are ready to have a go with a nursery-age busy book.

What should be inside?

The next thing to look at is the content — is it fun, is it relevant, and will you be able to get a good number of hours of use from it? (You want to get your money’s worth, after all!)

The good think about nursery learning is that it is linked to the government’s Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) statutory framework — this is the basis for everything your child would be learning at nursery or with a registered childminder. EYFS covers areas such as communication and language, literacy, mathematics and understanding the world. When looking at a busy book ask yourself if it covers some or all of these areas, so that you can be confident it is guiding your child in the right direction as they move (too quickly!) towards beginning school in Reception year.

Look at how you might use the activities in as many interesting ways as possible. It is likely in a nursery busy book there will be a ‘numbers to 10’ activity. To start, you would simply count to 10, but once you have built some confidence, you might want to count backwards, look at just odd or even numbers, or look at how numbers can be expressed and written in different ways — for example, the numbers page in the Pocket Panda nursery busy book shows numbers as digits, as written words and as dots. Always think about how you might get this extra learning from each activity.

More generally, does the content look engaging and fun? Are the learning pages too busy or not busy enough? In my teaching experience children benefit from colourful pages but which are not too overwhelming.

Ready-made or digital download?

There is a lot of choice when it comes to the format of busy books. Physical products which are shipped to can vary greatly in quality, but if you go for a digital download then you are only constrained by the quality of the printer you have. There are benefits to both, but if you are looking for a busy book that is ready to use, on suitable paper or card, laminated for toughness and with all movable pieces already cut out, the you would want something professionally made.

Print-at-home is great if you’re feeling crafty or wish to save a few pounds. As well as a printer you may wish to invest in a laminator and Velcro coins.

Pocket Panda busy books

When I set up Pocket Panda the first person I had in mind was my nephew, whose mum really wanted to start him learning numbers and letters but didn’t know where to begin.

My nephew loved our first busy book prototype, quickly developing new skills and knowledge, and really helping with his pre-writing skills and confidence in writing in general. We’ve never looked back!

Whilst there are so many busy books out there, we would of course love it if you chose Pocket Panda. We are a small family business, based in Buckinghamshire, and have been selling our Nursery and Reception busy book learning folders for more than two years.

Everything we do is illustrated and designed by us, produced and printed using local suppliers, and compiled by hand into our lovely Panda folders.

Perhaps it’s because I’m a teacher that I have ensured every single activity is linked to EYFS and nothing we sell isn’t something I would happily use with my own children or the children I teach.

We’ve had so much positive feedback from parents who have bought from the Panda Store, so please do take a look at what we have to offer. And please do contact me if you have any questions at all.