Reading To Active Kiddos
My kids are active. They spend their days running, skipping, jumping, climbing, and everything in between. Most days, there comes a point in the day where they need a break with no TV, no toys, just to rest and regroup. As an avid reader myself, when we first started these breaks it made sense for it to include a book. My oldest has always been the type to just lay down and flip through a book, even before he could read. Or we could sit together and I could read multiple books, even a chapter book to him and he would sit and enjoy his break. But the same is not true for my second born.
My daughter is almost 3 and she is my most active child. Since she was born she has been my mover. She can barely sit through an episode of Bluey. Trying to get her to sit and take a break with a book has been a lot more challenging. But we have found a few ways to get her to engage with different stories, because even if sitting still isn’t her thing, she still loves books!
One of our first tricks when reading with my active reader is having her act out the story.
While I read the story, each of the kids chooses a character to be and pretends to do what the character does. It’s a fun, imaginative, low sensory way to get them engaged in a story and still give them a bit of a break. Depending on the story they might put on a play themselves or pull out some stuffed animals and perform a puppet show while I read.
Something I recently tried that has worked really well for us is audiobooks.
Fun fact: Spotify Premium has a bunch of audiobooks for kids, including the Frog and Toad series. In moments where they need a break and I need to get something done, we’ll opt to play an audiobook as opposed to watching an episode of TV and it provides that same time for my kids to breathe and regroup in the middle of the afternoon. And if my daughter is practicing twirling while it’s playing it isn’t the end of the world.
