Busy Bag Swap {Part 3}: The Activities

Are you wondering what this Busy Bag Swap is all about?!  You can catch up by reading Part 1 and Part 2!

Whether you are looking to host a Swap of your own or just create some activities for your young one, the following is a list of 21 activities to choose from!  We completed 20 of the activities for our Swap. 

 

If applicable, the link to the original site where we found the idea is under the title of the activity.  If you follow those links, you will find a multitude of other ideas for activities! 

There is also a brief description on the project and a list of what materials you need to complete the activity.  If you choose to do a Swap, this is everything already laid out for you!  All you need to do is email your moms with a link to this post for them to choose their activity and they have details, links, and printables ready for them to use! 

You will also notice that some of the materials have a asterisk next to them.  When getting our Swap together we thought it best to make an Amazon Wish List for the moms to order the supplies needed to help the process move along smoothly.  For some materials, there is more than one option.  It was not mandatory that our moms ordered from our list; it was just intended to help save our mom's some time in locating the materials that they needed.  You can find our Busy Bag Wish List HERE!  Feel free to share with your moms if needed!

1.        Popsicle Stick Puzzle:  Make a puzzle out of a picture and Popsicle sticks.  Modpodge your picture to your sticks, then cut them apart.  You can also label the sticks with numbers to help with number recognition/order.                      

      

       a.      Any 4x6 image.   You can print the image on the above link or print any picture. 

                   b.      Popsicle sticks* (The jumbo size sticks are a great size; 10 per puzzle!!)
                   c.       Mod podge*
                   d.      Exacto knife/box cutter
                   e.      Foam brush


2.      Alphabet Match w/Plastic Eggs:    Letter recognition.  Capital Letter "A" on the top, lowercase "a" on the bottom.  10-12 letters to include the 5 vowels.      

a.     Plastic eggs* (We recommend using the same colored eggs in your bag, so your child learns to recognize the letters and is not color matching.)

                  b.      Permanent Marker
                   c.  Optional: For storage you can use an egg carton vs a Ziploc bag


3.      Number Match w/Plastic Eggs:  Number Recognition/Counting.  The number "3" on top, and 3 dots on the bottom.  10-12 eggs total.

                  a.     Plastic eggs*
                   b.    Permanent Marker
                   c.  Optional:  For storage use an egg carton vs a Ziploc bag

 

4.   Block Patterns:  Draw, color, and laminate cards with assorted patterns and numbers (could also be done on Word, then printed out).  Leave some patterns completed, just to be copied, and some, with a mystery block to complete the pattern.  10 different patterns.
                  

                   a.    Color Printer (Printable found HERE)
                   b.      Laminator
                   c.       Snap Cubes* or Duplo Blocks (enough to make patterns possible). 


5.      I Can Spell:  Words printed on paper and laminated with foam or plastic letter for the kids to match up.  In the bag I received I have the words....cat, how, is, pie, and, the, bus, box, run, two.        

                  a.      Printer
                   b.      laminator
                   c.       Foam Letters*


6.      Rigatoni Stringing:  Just an activity to work on a child's motor skills, or to help him learn his/her colors.  Colored noodles that your child strings onto a piece of yarn.     

                   a.      Rigatoni noodles
                   b.      A way to color/dye them:  link can be found HERE.
                                        i.      Rubbing alcohol
                                         ii.      Food coloring
                                        iii.      Ziploc bags
                    c.       Yarn
                    d.    Pipe cleaners*.  (Our mom genius-ly tied a small piece of a pipe cleaner onto the end of the yarn to make it easy to thread the yarn through the noodle!)


7.      Brown Bear, Brown Bear Matching Puzzles:  Pictures of different animals cut in half and laminated for the kids to match together.

a.      Color Printer (Printable on the above link on pages 14-16)

                  b.      Laminator
                   c.   Scissors
                  
 
8.     Pouring:  An activity to practice motor skills.                    

a.      Funnel

                   b.      Beans or beads  (make sure they feed through the funnel easily)
                   c.       2 Cups.  We used Specimen Cups*.
                   d.   Plastic spoon

*Mom might want to add a small plastic container  to this bag to help contain any loose beans during play time.


9.       Transferring :  Another activity to practice motor skills.                  

a.      Tongs*

                   b.      Ice cube tray or egg carton

c.       Pom poms*

                

10.   Felt Rainbow:  Have your child make a rainbow while learning their colors.                

a.      Printer  (Printable found here.)

                   b.      Laminator
                   c.       Felt
                   d.    Optional: Velcrow*.  It might help to put velcro pieces on each side of the "bow" and at the top to help keep them in place. 


11.  MagnetFaces:  Just a fun activity.  Two blank faces and lots of facial pieces to choose from for your child to create a face!

a.      Printer.  Printable for faces and facial pieces.  (Love, yours truly.)

                   b.      Laminator
                   c.       Magnets*
                   d.   Optional:  Magnetic Sheet* or Tin. 

*You can print the faces/facial pieces directly onto the sheets and then cut them out.  It wasn't in my budget to do this for all 10 moms, so I bought small adhesive magnets to go on the back of all the facial pieces.  I added two small magnets to each bag for the mom to attach to the back of each face, if they choose to.  The faces can be placed on the refrigerator or on a cookie sheet for play time.  To make this activity travel friendly the mom has the option of printing the faces onto a magnetic sheet after the fact.  In the original post there were no faces...the creator placed all the pieces in a small round tin for storage and play time.

 
 

12.  HomemadeFishing Game:  A magnetized fishing game.  (This has been a huge hit with our boys!)

                      

a.      Construction paper or foam*

                  b.      Laminator (if you use construction paper)
                   c.    Optional:  Safety Pins
                   c.       Magnets*
                   d.      Yarn
                   e.      Dowl rod

*Our mom choose to use a type of safety pin and stick it through the fish's mouth; only using one large magnet on the end of the fishing pole. 


13.  Button Snake:  Approximately 20 small rectangle felt pieces with a small slit cut in the middle.  One piece of felt sewn to the end of a piece of ribbon (about 8" long), with a button sewn to the other end of the ribbon.  The kids are just supposed to sew the button through all the felt pieces. 

                 a.  felt
                 b.  ribbon
                 c.  button
                 d.  scissors
                 e.  needle and thread (Optional: sewing machine)

 

14.   Hot Glue Rubbing Plates:  5 pieces of cardboard with different designs on them made with hot glue.  The kids then take paper and crayon and rub over the design. 

                  a. cardboard
                  b.  Optional: Spray Paint
                  c. glue gun
                  d. crayons
                  e. paper (will need to be replaced by mom as needed)
                 
*Our mom choose to spray paint the cardboard pieces different colors and she put designs on both the front and back of the cardboard. 


15. MeasureIt: An activity for measuring different pictures with different items.

                   a.  Printer.  Printable found here.
                   b. various pieces of string, twine, ribbon, straws, etc

 

16.   Spin and Spell:  A spelling game for beginners.  Each nut contains a different set of letters and the child spins them around till a word can be made.  Word cards can be printed out for those learning so they can match up the letters on the nuts with the letters on the cards.

a.      large bolt

                   b.      1 screw on nut
                   c.       3 larger nuts that will spin around bolt

d.      Stick on letters*, or a label maker
1st nut: FLMNRS
2nd nut: AEIUO
3rd nut: DGPTS

                  e.     please print off cards with possible word combinations  (printable HERE)

*If you can't purchase enough stickers for all the bolts, a label maker is a great alternative!  A permanent marker won't work.  :(

     17.   EyeSpy Bottle:  A small plastic bottle with small items for the child to find hidden in the rice.  Include a list or pictures of the items the child should be looking for.

 

                   a.  Small plastic bottle with the label removed - maybe a mini Gatorade bottle since they have wide mouths, but depending on what you add inside a water bottle would probably work
                    b.  glue gun or gorilla glue to glue the cap on
                    c.  rice
                    d.  small items that will fit in your bottle.
                    e.  Optional:  Camera, printer, & laminator to take pictures of the items going in the bottle.

 

18.  Lacing Cards:  Different shapes cut out of craft foam with holes punched evenly all around the sides.  Yarn or shoe laces for the child to lace the shapes with.

                    a. Craft foam*
                    b. Shoe laces, string
                    c. Printable from link, or just general shapes

19.  Pattern:  Different pattern sequences.  Extra pieces for the child to finish the pattern.  Minimum of 5 different cards/patterns with enough extra pieces to continue patterns.

                     a.  Printer (Printable found HERE.)
                     b.  Laminator
                     c.  Velcro dots to attach the extra pieces*
                   

20.   Cube Counting Tray:  An ice cube tray with each cube numbered and a bag of small items like beads or beans.  The child would put the corresponding number of beads into the ice cube trays.

            a.  Ice cube tray or egg carton
            b.  Magic Marker or label maker
            c.  Beans or beads*
 

 21.  Pipe Cleaner Beading:  Different colored pipe cleaners and beads.  Child is then supposed to thread the colored beads onto the same colored pipe cleaners.  If your child is too young for color recognition it’s great for motor skills.  You can also add number learning to this activity by specifying how many beads you want him/her to put on each pipe cleaner.

a.       Pipe Cleaners*

             b.      Beads*

  Whether you are choosing to do a Swap or just make some activities of your own, hopefully these posts will help to make it all easier.  :)  Let me know if you have any questions!!!

Busy Bag Swap {Part 2: Plan It}

If you missed Part 1...What is a Busy Bag Swap, then you can catch it here.

There are tons of ways you can do a Swap.  If you are wanting to host a Swap of your own here are a few questions you need to answer before you start.

1.  What age of child are you wanting to create activities for?  There are activities geared toward various ages.  Do you want to create activities for 18-36 month old?  Or do you want activities that are geared toward pre-schoolers?  Knowing your "target market" will help you limit what activities you choose and which moms to ask.  We choose to target 3 and 4 year olds.  While I'm hoping that some of my activities will still interest Blaine (2 years) on a certain level, he was not the focus this go around.

2.  How many bags do you want to walk aways with?  I knew that I wanted to walk away with 20 different activity bags.  If I did this project, I wanted it to be enough to last me a while.  Enough that Colin wouldn't get bored with the choices. 

3.  How many different activities do you want each mom to create?  I've read some blogs where there were 20 moms involved and they each did one activity, making 20 bags of the same thing.  I can only imagine the monotony that must have come with that project.  At times I was tired of my 10 bags of one activity.  I'm sure it depends partly on the activity, but I liked the idea of doing 10 bags each of 2 different activities.  The only way I would create more than 2 activities per mom is if I had more moms involved, maybe 15 or 20.

4.  How much do I want to/can I spend on this project?  Your budget might be your deciding factor in how many bags you make.  We wanted to keep each mom's cost between $20 and $40.  Our mom's agreed that we succeeded in that allowance.

5.  How do I want to do the exchange?  You can have the swap exchange by mail if you are including moms from a different state.  Each mom would just be responsible for the shipping of the activities she made to you, and she would need to include payment in her box for you to mail a box back to her with all the exchanged activities.  If you are going to do this, and are stateside, I would highly recommend making use of USPS and their offer to pick up your package at your front door.  That way you aren't toting 9 boxes down to the post office.  If you are considering doing this via mail, I would just be sure to calculate the shipping costs into the overall budget.   The second, and I believe, more common exchange is to host a Playdate; which is what we choose.  Once you decide what type of exchange you want to have that will also help you determine who to ask to participate.

Once you have those questions answered it will help everything else to fall into place!  Here's what we chose for our Swap:  Focusing on 3 and 4 year old kids. (We have a few moms whose kids are technically 2, but they looked over the projects and thought that their kids could benefit from them!) We had 10 moms total, each making 10 bags each of 2 different activities. We wanted to keep each mom's spending budget between $20 and $40.

Next Step:

1.  Gather Ideas for Activities!  If you can have your activity list done before you get your moms it will help your timetable move along more quickly.  Marque and I split this task down the middle.  We each had a goal to locate 10-12 activities that we thought would be beneficial.  If you come back for Part 3, I will have our complete list of activities that we choose from.  You don't even have to do any research if you don't want to.  :)  In our compilation we listed the project, the web link for reference, and a list of the supplies needed for the project.  If you want to search it out on your own, you can Google "Busy Bag Ideas" and you'll have ton's of links pop up.  You can also search on Pinterest and come up with quite a few links.

2.  Locate MOMS!  It's important to inform your "intended target" of the estimated cost of the project and the time commitment it will take to complete it!  Most of our moms agreed it took more time than they thought it would.  Some had unexpected "hiccups" along the way.  (I had many!)  On average our moms spent anywhere from 6-10 hours completing their projects!  As I said in my previous post, this is not for the faint of heart!!!  We started with our list of 10 moms that we thought would be interested.  We gave them a brief overview of the project and asked them for a  response by a designated time so that we could move on to the next mom if she wasn't interested.  We had a few say no, and we had to do a little digging to find a few more participants, but they were out there!!!  I think it took us about a week and a half total to get the 10 moms we wanted "locked-in".  And just to make it as easy as possible for you, click here to open up a copy of the first email we sent out asking moms to participate.  Copy and paste, and change what you need to!

3.  Email your moms!  Once we had our moms committed we emailed them the list of activities, asking them to look over the list and email us back, with-in a specified time (3-4 days), of their top 3 choices of activities that they would like to make.  Our goal was to get each mom at least 2 of their top 3 choices.  Surprisingly enough, it worked!!  We only had a few mom's requests overlap, but that third option normally helped to work it out.  At this time, we also gave our moms a few options on different playdate exchange dates/times.  Again, you can click here to find another copy of the version of this email we sent out.

4.  Assign each activity and schedule a Playdate!  Once your moms have responded with their top 3 choices, make your final list and email it back out with a date for the Exchange!!  Our Playdate exchange was very flexible.  I think we changed it about three times.  We had to wait on a lot of items to ship, some of which were on back order.  If for some reason one of your moms can't make the playdate it's no reason for her not to participate.  Just make sure she delivers her activities to you before the playdate so you can exchange them for her! 

5.  Get your supplies and create!  Don't put this off!  Time will sneak up on you!  While deadlines are also great motivators, you might be regretting it at 3 AM the morning of the playdate.  (I am NOT speaking from experience on this one!)  I do know that my two activities took me more time that I thought.  I also ran into a few bumps along the way, having to adjust my original plan on how to complete the project, and even having to change one entire activity.  :)

6.  Communicate!!!  Always a key, right?!  This is important from the beginning to the end.  Marque and I had to follow-up with moms from the time the first email was sent out asking if they were interested.  Make sure you are keeping up with your moms.  They have crazy lives too and things come up.  Make sure they are getting your emails.  Make sure they found all the supplies they needed.  Do they want to get together for a playdate on the side to put their activity together?  Did they under-estimate the time commitment; do they need to gracefully back out? 

7.  Playdate!  You can make this as simple or as complex as you want.  If you've been wanting a reason to bake some yummy treats and host some company, then this could be it!  Otherwise, plan a bring-your-own-picnic date at the park, or just a regular hour of play at a local playground.  Again, if there is a mom that can't attend just make sure you get her activities from her prior to the playdate and you can exchange them for her.

8.  Walk away with new activities for you and your child to enjoy!!  Keep in mind that some activities might take a little more instruction/help to begin with.  On some of the activities we choose there are a few different ways each one could be used.  Some could be used just as a motor-skills activity, but can also be used as color coordinating, or making patterns, or counting, etc, etc.  You have the freedom to use the bag how you want!


Make sure you come back for Part 3 for the list we used for our Busy Bag Swap!

Busy Bag Swap {Part 1: What is a Busy Bag Swap?}

Have you ever heard of Busy Bags? 

A busy bag is a simple, age appropriate activity, normally kept in a Ziploc bag, that can be pulled out for your child to enjoy either with you or on their own.  They can come in very handy when you need just a few minutes of uninterrupted time but don't want to stick them in front of the TV.

Soon after we moved to Germany I heard of a friend back in Texas who had participated in a Busy Bag Swap when she was in Kansas.  I have seen lots of ideas over the Internet on activities to entertain your toddler/pre-schooler, but this was the first time I had heard of a "Swap". 

The idea intrigued me and it sat in my brain for a few months.  After beginning Homeschooling my need to find some activities to help entertain Colin and Blaine became very clear.  It was something that needed to be moved toward the top of my "project" list.  My friend, Marque, also started Homeschooling this year and she found herself in the same position with her 3 year old.  I had mentioned the idea to her in months past, and knew she was interested, so I recruited her to help me with the Swap.   Having someone to do it with, that you know is "on-board" is always a great motivation. 

Why a Swap for these activities?  It's the whole concept of killing two birds with one stone.  Getting more bang for your buck!  There are lots of moms that are probably in a similar situation as you.  1.  A lot of these activities can call for items that are cheaper to be bought in bulk.  What am I going to do with the other 220 magnets, when I only needed 30?  2.  Breaking it up between multiple moms also cuts down on the cost.  If I wanted to make 20 different activity bags it would probably cost me a minimum of $100, to get all the supplies I needed.  Then I'd end up with an excess of supplies.  3.  As I stated above, having someone come alongside you with a like purpose is great motivation!  Knowing that there is a group of women working hard to create an activity that you and your child will benefit from is motivating!

The overall idea is that each mom puts together a set of bags and at a designated time you exchange your bags walking away with multiple activities.  Very much like a cookie exchange!  

You can use these bags to entertain your child while you have to make a quick phone call, during a road trip, at a doctor's appointment, etc.  Some moms have used these Busy Bags to entertain their children during quite-time and have a specified Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday, etc box for them to choose certain activities from.  There are plenty of options on when and how to make these usable!

We originally committed to this Swap mid September.  We just hosted our Playdate Exchange and it's November.  This project is not for the faint of heart!  Given that fact that we are overseas, most of us had to order our supplies.  Ordering easily added 1-2 weeks time onto our timeline; even having to extend our playdate a few times waiting on delayed shipments.  If you are in the states, I'm sure you could have a playdate set up 2 weeks from the time you have your committed moms and it wouldn't be a problem.

Are you intrigued?!  Want to host a Swap of your own?!!!  I've got you covered!!  Part 2 will take you step by step in what you need to do to host a Swap.  Part 3 will have the detailed list of all the activities we used for our Swap.  I love my other mommies out there and wanted to make this something that is as simple as possible with a great return!!!

Not a mommy of young ones yourself?  Don't drop out!!  You might not host a Swap, but talk about a cheap, homemade, functional gift!!!  I promise...you make even one or two of these for a young mom that you know she will be forever in your debt!  (If she doesn't appreciate it then she must be that "Super-Mom" everyone keeps talking about!)