Read along stories.

I recently rediscovered the awesomeness of read along stories. We found an entire section of books in our library that come with an audio cd that reads the story to you. Even better, most of the cd's have a signal for the child to turn the page so this can be an independent activity for kids who can't read on their own yet. So instead of turning on a show for my older daughter while I am putting the baby down for the night, I have been setting her up with a few books and cd's. She loves this and it is a great calming activity before bed! 

The one down side is that most of the stories are only 5-7 minutes long. I lay out the books and cd's for my daughter ahead of time and have taught her how to switch out the cd's and press play so this isn't a big deal for us. But for younger children, one option would be to buy a few audio stories that you own the books too and put them all on one cd so there is no need to switch cd's. Or a little more high tech option would be to just make a playlist of all the audio stories on your computer or portable music device and gather all the books and hit play.

Anyways, this is a great way to sneak in some extra reading time into your little one's day (and keep him occupied for a few minutes!), not to mention just a fun way to shake up nightly bedtime stories. Try it out and see what your little one thinks!