I’m always on the lookout for literacy, and this has to be the cutest alphabet set I have EVER seen. Sweet little stuffed alphabet letters in various patterns, colors, and fabrics. Best of all, some of the letters crinkle, some squeak, some rattle, and some jingle. Just…so…adorable!
We discovered this set while putting together our new library baby program which involves unstructured social time and soft playscapes. But we also wanted a way to work in our best buddy, the alphabet. Enter the Soft Sensory Alphabet by Environments. The set comes with a fabric basket, and each machine washable letter is 5″ tall.
The set retails for $62 online at Discount School Supply. The price is a little steep, but we couldn’t find it less expensively through any other vendors. Etsy, of course, has some fabulous fabric letters, but I don’t imagine they’re machine washable like this set.
How did the set go over? The babies and toddlers loved it. They pounced, sorted, stacked, and rattled the letters. Some traversed the gallery, grasping a favorite. Others spent a good amount of time removing letters from the fabric basket and putting them back in again…
This little girl and her grandparents were naming all the letters as she picked them up. It was incredible to see her grab one and proudly say “W!” all on her own. The Soft Sensory Alphabet by Environments is definitely recommended!
The packaging for My Miniature Library is a delightful cardboard box in the shape of a book. When you open the box, you are greeted with a small instruction booklet, 18 sheets of books covers and pages, and a cardboard punch-out bookshelf.
The 9″ x 12″ box containing the kit (and this is really cool) is also the set of the library. Prop it up on its side, and it becomes your library, complete with chevron hardwood floors, birds in flight wallpaper, and a window framed with fall leaves. When you are done playing with your miniature library, you simply pack everything inside the box, close the lid, and slide the kit on a shelf until next time!
The kit contains the makings for 30 tiny books: 20 pre-written (both fiction and non-fiction), 8 books with title prompts you can author yourself, and 2 completely blank books for whatever topic you desire. Here’s a set of the pre-printed book sheets (which were primarily fairy tales):
And here’s a set of the design-your-own sheets:
Generally, the instructions are very clear, concise, and easy to follow. Especially the cardboard bookshelf. The books are where I started to run into some trouble. To create a miniature book, you first cut out the 2 strips that become the book pages, and the cover of the book. Then you carefully accordion-fold the book pages together, and glue them inside the front and back of the book’s cover.
You have to carefully cut the 2 page strips in order to not lose any of the text or images. You also have to cut out the cover. For 30 books, that’s 90 pieces of paper to cut. That’s a lot of cutting.
And here is the finished library, bookshelf and all. We placed my toilet paper tube portrait of Johnathan Swift (who you first met 
However, I disagree with the recommended age of 6+. I think children 10+ are better suited for the complicated cutting and folding to put these books together. With an estimated 3 hours to craft all 30 books (and that’s after all the cutting is done), I can imagine many children would give up well before all of the books are finished. Children under 10 might also have trouble writing small enough for the design-your-own books portion of the kit. Still, there’s no denying the awesomeness of your very own library with readable books and gorgeous hardwood floors!
The future is here, because some amazing genius has invented color changing markers. But do they really work? While Crayola, Alex, and an intriguingly named company called Wham-O all have versions of these markers, today, we’ll be testing the Switch-Eroo set of 12 color changing markers by Ooly ($9).
Each marker has a color chisel tip at one end, and a slightly rounder white tip on the other end. The premise is simple. Use the color end first, then turn the marker around and use the white end on top of the color. Here’s a rainbow with the color end of the markers:
And here’s the results of the white end on top of said colors. Pretty cool right? The color yellow was especially surprising. Look at those big, bold purple circles!
There was no smudging as you “reversed” the colors, though in my opinion, there seemed to be a lot of yellow resulting from the color reverse. Red, orange and light green? Those basically all reversed as yellow. As did blue and pink. But look at the dark green. It reversed as red! Very cool.
One question you might be asking: Does the white end do anything if you just use it on paper? Nope. Below you can see my yellow scribble, and how I drew on top of it with the white end of the marker. But you can barely see where I departed from the yellow and drew an arrow pointing upwards. Once the white tip moves off the color, the ink basically becomes invisible.
Wooo hooo hooo! The coolness factor just increased ten fold.