My toddler loves books. He loves picture books and he loves board books. Put the two together and you have a board book full of pictures…or a book called My Big Wimmelbook. My Big Wimmelbook: Fire Trucks! is an interactive children’s book and, after going through it with my tot, it just so happens to be one of my favorite picture books to build vocabulary due to their colorful illustrations and fun character scenes.
Have you ever heard of Where’s Waldo? Well, the Big Wimmelbook is similar to that. It has very few words in the book, mostly colorful illustrations and pictures full of different scenes and multiple characters. And the purpose is to find these characters in each of the pages and in each scene. As children search for these characters, this interactive children’s book introduces different words and scenes that will enrich their vocabulary and broaden their understanding of the world around them. And the world in the book!
Toddlers board books are amazing books for 1 year olds, 2 year olds, and even 3 year olds and beyond. In fact, my ten-year-old son loved hunting the characters on all the pages! It turned out to be a fun family time as we kept looking for that orange cat or Chief Carlos and Spot, among other characters. Like I said, even one-year-olds would enjoy simply looking at all the pictures and learning new words and items.
An Interactive Children’s Book: My Big Wimmelbook: Fire Trucks!
Interactive children’s books are wonderful to expose to your toddlers because these books are picture books to build vocabulary. There are a few different Wimmelbooks and we have The Big Wimmelbook: Firetruck book. We chose this particular Wimmelbook because Grandpa is actually a retired firefighter (he was a Lieutenant). Plus, we love all things firetrucks. My toddler was even a firefighter for Halloween last year!
My Big Wimmelbooks (Toddlers Board Books)
If you’ve never heard of the Wimmelbooks, they are seriously one of the best picture books to build vocabulary with your toddler or preschooler. There’s also a book series available that consist of 11 books.
A few of the Big Wimmelbooks available are:
- My Big Wimmelbook―Animals Around the World
- My Big Wimmelbook―Cars and Things That Go
- My Big Wimmelbook―At the Construction Site
- My Big Wimmelbook―On the Farm
- My Big Wimmelbook―Fire Trucks!
- My Big Wimmelbook―A Day at the Zoo
- My Big Wimmelbook―Dinosaurs
- And more!
The Big Wimmelbook Is A Board Book For Toddler Vocabulary
Why is vocabulary so important for young children? And how do board books play a role in this? Interactive books for young children are important to have around the house and expose your child to because their speech and language development is kicked into high gear at this age. So, exposing books for speech and language development to your little one can help foster a love of reading and support the way they use words and say certain phonemes.
Phonemes are distinct units of sound that distinguish one word from another, such as p, b, d, and t in the English words pad, pat, bad, and bat. Interactive reading helps differentiate these sounds for your toddler, which adds new words to their brain, increases their everyday words library, and shows how different sounds create new words. All from picture books! Awesome, right?
It’s great to have diverse board books toddlers can read laying around the house for this very reason. The more toddlers read, the more their vocabulary grows and their imagination, spelling, phonics, storytelling, and eventually their writing. And just many more benefits happen from reading interactive books for young children, like fostering a love of reading.
How We Use My Big Wimmelbook In Our Home
My toddler just got his own toddler bed to sleep in, but he was having a difficult time committing to sleeping in his new bed. I discovered pretty quickly that if I read to him every night in his little bed prior to lights out, he’s more likely to sleep in his new Mickey Mouse bed. And that’s what we did and still do in order for him to (usually) sleep in his bed.
One night we got ready for night night time and since we’d just gotten My Big Wimmelbook: Fire Trucks! in the mail from Timberdoodle, I was eager to “read” this book with him that night. It’s a book with few words, so reading isn’t exactly what we do. However, like reading, his vocabulary is developing all the same.
My Big Wimmelbook is a board book for toddler vocabulary development by being an interactive children’s book. Interactive children’s books are books where kids have to do something along with the book, kind of like a Choose Your Own Adventure book or even Where’s Waldo? (which are also some of the best picture books to build vocabulary with your tot, by the way).
When your toddler is introduced to new characters, new things, and new places, they’re learning what these characters, things, and places are. You tell them what they are and they learn from this book.
For example, my toddler, Scout, didn’t know what a drone was, though a drone is one of the transportation items you need to find in the scenes. So we hunted for these objects hidden in plain sight. When Scout found the drone, he’d explain I find the drone! – thus building his vocabulary, increasing his word bank knowledge, and expanding his personal vocabulary list.
I didn’t realize how wonderful it was to own a board book for toddler vocabulary until I noticed all the new words that Scout was learning just by this book. And not only was he learning new words, but he was also learning new situations, such as what firefighters do, what a TV crew does, that canoes are smaller boats, that firefighters use those long water hoses to put out fires, and that those long water hoses hook up to the fire hydrants (also a new word for him).
True Story: We were in town yesterday and we happen to see a fire hydrant. And Scout told me that firefighters use that for water for their hoses to put out the fire. I was impressed because he definitely learned that in My Big Wimmelbook – Fire Trucks! See?
My Big Wimmelbook: Fire Trucks! Interactive Children’s Books
The characters are in every scene throughout the book. Each scene is a 2-page spread. This interactive children’s book introduces the characters at the beginning of the book and tells you their names and what they’re doing or trying to do in each scene. You have to find these people or things or animals that are in every single scene. It’s super cool looking for that orange cat “hidden” in different places on each page or scene. (I noticed I mentioned this cat twice already so obviously I’m pretty tickled by it!)
The pages of this board book are super sturdy and glossy. It’s a solid book that looks like it can stand the test of time, which is honestly a good thing because toddlers aren’t the most graceful people, even though they so adorably try to do things as carefully as possible.
My Big Wimmelbook Review: Board Book for Toddler Vocabulary 2021
If you have a toddler, I recommend My Big Wimmelbook: Fire Trucks! to read with him or her. We’ve enjoyed finding these characters and since there are multiple characters, you’ll be able to go through this book and cycle through the characters just fine without memorizing where they’re located, at least for most of them. That’s what we do and it works pretty well.
By the time we circle back to finding character #1 again, I’ve done forget where I found that character in each of the pages! And I think whether my toddler forgets as well or does remember where to find them, either way, it will only benefit him with his memory skills, logical reasoning skills, and speech and language development!
Check out My Big Wimmelbook: Fire Trucks here or click on the image below. You can grab this book individually or get it with Timberdoodle’s 2021 Preschool Curriculum Kit and Nonreligious 2021 Preschool Curriculum Kit, both of which also include amazing toddlers board books just like My Big Wimmelbook: Fire Trucks!
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All my time around Timberdoodle, and I never realized the inside of Wimmelbooks were so detailed! Super cool.
I know right? And the My Big Wimmelbooks have a ton more books than just on Fire Trucks!
This looks like such a great book for reading and having conversations with your toddler.
You said it exactly. It really is. We love talking about all the scenes and characters inside the book. They each seem to get a new story every time!