Favourite Books for Potty Training

We started potty training earlier in the year and on the advice of Rosie's nursery I bought the Little Princess title by Tony Ross 'I Want My Potty'. It's now a firm favourite and a book that we like to read anyway. Partly because Rosie gets to shout 'I want my potty' very loudly! It's the story of the Little Princess having to learn to love her potty and learning how to use it. It has a very funny twist at the end and what I love most about it is it's not too didactic and is very forgiving towards mistakes (as is shown by the ending). Sometimes when you're so desperate for your child to do something you can lose sight of this!

The other book we got was 'Princess Polly's Potty' from Ladybird Books. The boy version 'Pirate Pete's Potty' was featured on Chris Evan's radio show after he found it helped his son. It's very thorough and guides the child (and parent) through what to expect and how to potty train. It also has a sound button with cheering noises which works well with the general reward approach that most parents use for potty training anyway.

There are lots of other potty based children's books out there but these were the ones which we found worked for us!

Orchard Toys - Shopping List, Old MacDonald's Farm and Incey Wincey Spider

A bit of an off-piste post but I consider the Orchard Toys games we have to be as good as many of the books we read! They offer consistent good quality and fun and are also very educational, what more could you want?

First up is Shopping List, according to their website it's their bestseller and it's easy to see why. It's packaged as suitable from three years although we got it last year for Rosie's second birthday and she found it enjoyable to play it as a one person game and fill all the trolleys herself rather than play it with other children. It's basically a matching game where you have to take a shopping list and trolley and then fill your trolley with the items you need from your list, it's good for extending a child's food vocabulary too.

Next we got Old MacDonald Lotto. It doesn't really feature Old MacDonald but has four different farmers with their various animals and tractors to collect. It's similar in concept to Shopping List but you can also make the animal noises! This is great with a child who can't quite get to saying the word yet but can make the animal noise to indicate what they mean. I would say it's a bit easier to play with a younger child making it definitely suitable from two years.

We have just bought Insey Winsey Spider which is aimed at three year olds to six year olds. It uses counting and shapes to help the spiders up the drainpipe and has added drama with a spinner which can wash them down again! We haven't played it that much yet but I can see already that it's going to be a game that we play over and over again.

So that's the games we currently have from Orchard Toys. I think we will be adding many more to our stock over the years! I have my eye on one of their new ones 'Where's my Cupcake?'!

The Yoga Ogre by Peter Bently and Simon Rickerty

The Yoga Ogre is a very funny and charming book about an ogre who has got too fat and wants to lose some weight. Unfortunately because of his size everything he tries ends in disaster. His basketball slam dunks end with the town church missing its steeple. Yoga is a no-no when he tries to do a headstand and bashes the ceiling in.

The town people end up telling him that on no account is he to play any sport because of the damage he is causing and so everything quietens down... until he take up jogging!

The text is rhyming and nice to read aloud and the illustrations are lovely with lots of detail. A laugh out loud book to share together!

Jobs people do by Jo Litchfield and Felicity Brooks

This book is a fairly hefty volume with six stories of different people and the jobs they do. At the moment we only ever read about Daisy the Doctor and Tessa the Teacher with an occasional dip into Vicky the Vet. Frank the Farmer, Sam the Chef and Fred the Firefighter are left out in the cold!

We have a few other books which focus on vocations and what people do for a living. Ladybird used to do a series called 'Little Workmates' which also focused on this subject although more from a younger point of view and with less detail.

All the stories look at the average day of the person and include a little bit of drama to spice up the action. In Daisy the Doctor she has to treat a young boy who has cut himself quite badly and needs a big bandage. This always seems to go down well with toddlers. Mainly because they can empathise with it I guess.

Tessa the Teacher is the one I hear Rosie re-enacting the most. She lines up her toys and takes the register and goes through their day. It's not that dissimilar to her nursery day so I guess she also likes it because it's a familiar routine.