I have to admit that in the summer we don’t tend to do as many art and craft activities as we do during the winter.  The weather is warmer and days are longer, so we are much more likely to be outdoors enjoying nature.

Of course there are also days in the summer when we can’t be bothered to go far and want to relax at home.  Littlest is particularly happy to play game after game with anyone he can convince to sit with him.  Eldest loves to draw and play different imaginative games with his brother, but the one thing they both love is to sit down and listen to stories with me.

Story Time

As the boys are 2 years apart in age you would think that there would be some difference in books they enjoy to read.  Surprisingly there’s not and I can easily read a toddler book to them both or longer childrens book with few pictures.

We haven’t started on many of the older books, such as Harry Potter or similar yet.  I know that our almost 6 year old would probably enjoy parts of it, but he can get easily scared too.  So we are waiting for a year or so until we can turn him into an HP geek (I will be so disappointed if he’s not interested!!).

Julia Donaldson’s books are still firm favourites in our house, with littlest particularly loving Charlie Cook’s Favourite Book and The Gruffalo.  Mr 5 loves any books that are a bit silly, including The Disgusting Sandwich by Gareth Edwards, but really enjoys nonfiction books.  We have a great selection kids nonfiction books including books about castles, trains (we have known of his fascination with trains since he learnt to speak!), dinosaurs and space.  I love that we have an ever expanding selection of children’s books!

But with the piles of books we have lying around the house, I really do need to organise it a little better.  I’m one of those people who HATES to see a book being abused and mistreated.  The book chewing stage was very tough for me.

To try and organise some of the books I’m going to create a little book nook for the boys.  A perfect little spot for getting lost in stories together.

Book Nook

A while ago I tried to create a book nook in our eldests bedroom, but it clearly isn’t a great place to sit and read together.  So I am turning a little used corner of our living room into Book Nook Version 2!

This particular corner is filled with toys that are usually thrown into a huge pile.  I have tried so many times to tidy it up, but it appears everyone else prefers it to be a toy blackhole….  So toys are being thrown out (or at least moved to a different pile, as if I would do that to my kids!) and cosiness is being installed.

In the original book nook I started with a nest of cushions and baby quilts, but I wanted something a bit more substantial this time.  So I am hoping to find a cute kids armchair, or possibly two to fit in the space.

Next will be a couple of shelves of books.  We have these Ikea spice rack shelves in our eldests bedroom, which are used for books, but I want something a bit more substantial for the nook.  Where we can fit more than six books on a shelf at once.

Of course, we can’t neglect the wall space either.  I’m considering some sort of bunting in a book theme, maybe woodland or magical?  I will have to have a look around or make something myself!

Hopefully this will be the beginning of a great reading corner for my kids, and something they will actually use!

Do you have a book nook for your kids?  What have you added to make it more attractive to them?

* This is a collaborative post.