Please note that we were gifted two of the My First Touch and Find Books Series for the purposes of this review, but as ever, the opinions given are honest and all mine!
One of my little ladies’ favourite things to do is sit with me and look at books. They are fascinated by the whole process and get very excited by a new story. So imagine their and my delight when a parcel arrived from Campbell Books containing two My First Touch and Find books for us to keep. Two books – woo hoo! that means no fighting and so a happy mummy from the start.
As soon as we opened the parcel the girls wanted to sit down and read the books so they were immediately grabbed by the cover of the books. They are very brightly coloured and engaging and straight away had lots to look at which is always good for toddlers.
We were sent My First Touch and Find Park and My First Touch and Find Farm. The books are lift the flap style books which have sensory input in the form of textural sections on the illustrations under each one of the flaps. I have to say when I first saw the books I wondered if they would be too young for my two who are the top end of the age range that the publisher is targetting. The books are aimed at ages 1-3 years old and my girls will be 3 shortly. They probably weren’t as engaged with the idea of the textured pieces, but boy oh boy did they love lifting the flap…. They were getting so excited about guessing who or what was behind each flap that my concerns about age appropriateness disappeared and we set about having fun. They wouldn’t even leave the kitchen so were sat on their foot stools reading and I ended up sitting on the tiles beside them. Honestly they were transfixed and actually did like stroking the ducks tummy with one of the girls telling me she liked her book because it was soft. So that shows how much I know about almost 3 year olds!!
After we did at least 10 rounds of ‘who is behind the flap’ the girls finally agreed to let go of the books and move onto the sofa. They also let me read the books to them and it was then that they really came into their own as I could see that these books are actually quite cleverly pitched to cover the complete age range of 1-3 as not only do they have the interactive lift the flap and sensory panels, but also have slightly more complex questions for old toddlers to enjoy. The other questions start to introduce more abstract concepts such as who and what and differing sizes all elements that are included in developmental milestones. They also start to introduce the idea of reading text and decoding it for questions which is part of the key stage one curriculum that my elder sons are working through. Some examples of the questions are:
 
As I have mentioned before one of my little girls has a speech delay and these books were perfect for engaging with her around using her words to describe different scenes, but also were a useful tool for me being able to pitch to the differing developmental levels of my twins so I can see they would also work well for siblings that were close together in age, but needing different learning opportunities.
From my point of view as a parent these books fulfill a lot of my key requirements for reading with toddlers;
- The pages are colourful and interesting
- There is lots going on on every page and so toddlers can be easily engaged and reengaged
- They are hard board books and are wipe clean – ideal with my rough and mucky littles
- The lift up flaps are big so even the littlest of toddler would be able to manage them
- The lift up flaps won’t tear easily
- There are range of ways the books can be used for learning
- Toddlers love them – my girls have asked for to read them everyday since they arrived and if that isn’t a tick in the box I don’t know what is
I would recommend these books especially for a 1 year old as I think you would get great use out of them for a good couple of years. I do love a toddler item with longevity!
