Story dice and button turtle

(baby bird is 21 months)

I am excited because I now know that my blog has a readership of at least one. My friend, claiming to have been inspired by my blog, sent me some photos of her great craft projects. I say "claiming" because I know for a fact she does loads of creative stuff and I suspect she would be doing these with or without my blog, but I'm flattered none the less. 
Her first project is a Button Practice Turtle. This is a similar idea to the turkey from Counting Coconuts. 

But what's really great about this turtle is that as well as the button practice the turtle's shell is made of ever decreasing ovals. So you can also teach your toddler about size sequencing big to small. 

I really like the single big button because it makes it easy for tiny hands, as demonstrated by my friend's daughter, baby bird. 

The other project my friend shared with me is her story dice. This is a variation of story stones. There are two reasons why I think these are really clever. The first is they introduce an element of unpredictability into the story telling process because you won't know what you will get when you roll the dice. 

 The second is that the dice have a dual purpose as stacking blocks. 

 And they are lighter than story stones so could be thrown into a busy bag for journeys.