Disclosure: This post contains Amazon affiliate links.
Does your child still take a nap? If so, that is awesome! I hope you are blessed with many more days like that. My oldest used to take great naps, but lately he started cutting them out. He just lays in bed and is very restless or goes to the bathroom 15 times. Nap time wasn’t working, so I decided to try something new with him — Quiet Time Boxes.
Since I believe rest time for little ones is so important, I still make him lay in his bed for about an hour. If he falls asleep, that is great! It means he really needed a nap! If not, then I let him play independently with his quiet time box of the day. I’ve seen quiet time boxes on Pinterest and other blogs, but had never made one for my kids. It turns out, they are really simple to make. I got 5 clear storage boxes from Target and put 4-6 items that my child can play with independently inside each box. These are items that are special and are only played with during quiet box time. I have one for every day of the week. After a while, I will switch out the items. For now, he is loving this time and does a great job doing the activities independently and not interrupting mommy. (This is great for me, since this is when I get my work done around the house and on the blog!) I put special items in each box, some are new and some are activities we already have. You do not have to go out and buy a ton of materials, you can use what you have! Or the Dollar Store always has items that are fun to put in these quiet time boxes.
Here is what I put in each box:
1. Foal to Horse book (I like to rotate different books for him to look at.)
2. Avengers Activity Coloring Book and washable markers (from Target)
3. Different Shaped Links to hook together or make patterns (from Dollar Tree)
4. Fun With Mazes Wipe-Off Book 
5. Melissa & Doug Joey Magnetic Dress-Up
1. Making Shapes with Monkey Book
2. Noah and the Ark
3. Do-a-Dot marker and coloring sheets
4. Sticker Activity Pad (from Hobby Lobby)
5. Melissa & Doug Magnetic Farm Hide and Seek
1. Connect the Dots Workbook (from Hobby Lobby)
3. Planes Activity Coloring Book (from Target)
4. Melissa & Doug Lace and Trace Pets
5. Melissa & Doug Magnetic Towing Game
6. Small containers of play dough (he plays with it on the lid of the box)
1. Discovery Toys Lacing Set (could not find it online anywhere–sorry!)
2. Crayola Dry Erase Activity Center Travel
3. Slime (from Target–he plays with this on the lid of the tub. And it is not sticky slime–just a fun sensory activity!)
4. Melissa & Doug Water Wow Coloring Book – Vehicles
5. Melissa & Doug Jigsaw Puzzle
1. Tangrams (from Dollar Tree)
2. Crayola Spiderman Color Wonder Book
3. Putty (from Dollar Tree)
5. Lined Dry Erase Board and marker (from Target)
6. Stomp! (a fun dinosaur book)
And here is my preschooler enjoying his quiet time box…
Another thing we do is have our kids listen to stories during rest time. He loves these stories and they are great, classic stories for children. I just put them on my iPad and let them play. There are 25 stories making it 237 minutes! I got mine on iTunes, but you can also get it here —> Kids Bedtime Stories
Also, if you want the labels I used for our quiet boxes, you can download them here —> Quiet Box Labels
If you need more quiet box ideas, check out this post with 75 more ideas (and a lot of them are free!)!
What do you do for rest time at your house?
Hi Angela,
Our boys are about the same age (4, 7, 9) and my challenge is how to create a quiet time especially during the summer that can be catered to ages, my issue seems to be that my older two don’t really want quiet time during the day unless it’s tv, ipad, video game related. I just wondered if you had some suggestions in your experience not only as a teacher but as a mom with kiddos the same age.
Thank You and Best Regards,
Carrie
I can totally relate! It’s so easy to just turn on screens, but I’m also trying to limit that. For quiet rest time, I do have them just read quietly or draw in their rooms. I do that for about 30 minutes to an hour. I also let them listen to audio books. It’s nice to have some quiet time during the day! They weren’t always thrilled about this, but after getting in the habit, it got better. Hope that helps!
Anything for older ones? We have a set homework time but I’m finding most of mine don’t have homework or would rather do it with parents than me, (I’m the after school teacher)
That makes sense. Right now, I don’t have a post on quite time boxes for older kids. But I can try to think of ideas and write another post.
I’m wondering what size the bins are.
They are 16 quart bins.
We haven’t done naps in a really long time. But I want to make some of these for my 2 year old for homeschooling come September. This year I’ll have both girls “doing school” so it’ll be nice to have something just for him during those times.
What do you do on Saturday & Sunday?
Also, does he play in the floor or on the bed? Your picture shows floor but the blog says bed…
How old was your son when this started to work for him?
Have you had any problems with markers or paydough/slime getting messy in his bed/room?
We desperately need something to help my son rest. He’s three but hates being alone so much he tears up his room when we tried having him stay in there for “rest time” which became less of a break for me!