Last fall, I hosted a pretty massive busy bag exchange with 20 of my girlfriends. We did a toddler aged and preschool aged exchange (and most of us participated in both.) Those posts have a ton of ideas and remain our most popular posts on the blog.
The busy bags were a hit with our kids and a few of the other moms wanted to squeeze in a quick exchange before our upcoming move. We decided to keep it small and only have 6 of us. It made for a much more managable exchange and of course it made making the bags easier. If you are hosting one you have to decide if you’d rather make 20 because you’re already doing some or if you just want to make it simple and do a smaller number. There are benefits to both types of exchanges!
Here’s a look at the bags we exchanged.
Letter Tiles and Alphabet Cards from Unsolicited Advice. Adelaide (27 months) loves the tactile feel of the letter tiles. She’s still to young to be able to do this activity independently but sometimes I help her do it. She’s really into her letters right now so she thinks it’s fun!
Pizza Factory. I have seen versions of this around pinterest but Robyn came up with this idea all on her own and even made the pizza recipe cards! You can download her cards here, here, and here. She included a felt crust, felt sauce, pepperoni, mushrooms, green peppers and olives. So fun. Again, Adelaide hasn’t done any recipe following yet, but she probably could if I helped her. She just likes to put on the toppings and pick them off.
Paint Chips and Paper Clips. This is another one that Robyn put together and Addie LOVES it. Robyn got the paint chips from Home Depot (but they may be tricky to find because I’ve tried two Home Depots since we moved and haven’t had any luck.) The paper clips can be clipped onto the side of the paint chip (like on the yellow chip) but it takes Addie forever to do that and she gets frustrated so I showed her how to just set the paper clips on top. She plays this one over and over. It’s one of my favorite ones to keep in my purse because it’s so small.
Magnetic Paper Clip Sorting from Teach Beside Me. This one is fun because the child can choose their own method of sorting. Sometimes I start Addie off by putting one of each color on each stick but sometimes I let her do her own thing. It can also be used for patterning!
Number Egg Matching. This is one I made up, but it’s pretty simple so I know there are similar versions all over the place. The kids can match the number word to the numeral as well as the pictorial representation to the numeral (on diferrent sides of the eggs.) Then they can count out that many pom poms and put them inside. I thought about making each egg a different color pom pom too but I thought that might make it too complicated. But that might be a fun extension for this activity for an older child.
Paint Chip Matching from Teach Beside Me. This one is cool because it’s different shades of each color so it’s a higher level thinking activity. The clothespins are still hard for Addie to maneuver.
And somehow I don’t have pictures of the yarn + sandpaper bag that was made for the exchange. Sorry about that! You can see pictures of it with the directions at Momtastic.
As always, PLEASE supervise your children when they play activities like these and be sure that they are old enough to handle them safely.
Feeling inspired? Learn how to host your own busy bag exchange.
You can always follow me on pinterest for more inspiration.
Full of wonderful ideas for parents or teachers to make busy bags for their own children—or to do an exchange as you have! These might make great travel activities as well! ~heather
I love these. I need to make Busy bags for my girl!
We had a toddler busy bag party a few months bag and the activities made doctor’s office trips, restaurant waits, etc. so much easier. I love these ideas and have added them to the top of my to-do list. Thank you!
Thanks for these! I am in the midst of hosting a busy bag exchange and I found all your tips so helpful. Thanks!
They really do travel well, that’s my favorite part. Thanks Heather!
Thanks Cassie! You definitely should make some. They’re so fun.
Thank you Malia! Happy to hear you had a busy bag party. I think they are such a great way for parents to work together to make educational activities for their kids!
So happy to help LeAnne. Good luck with your exchange!
These are fantastic- full of creative and fun ways to entertain. And I love the idea of using some of these for car trips.
A busy bag exchange is such a good idea! I think I’ll do that instead of gifts at my toddler’s birthday party b/c we have a small house and more toys don’t interest us, but encouraging guests to bring a busy bag they’ve made is perfect! Plus, there were a lot of great busy bag ideas here I hadn’t seen before. Can I share this post as part of my upcoming hotel room boredom busters post I’m doing next week?
How lovely! and such a great idea!!! Please consider of linking it up at our Made With Love Bloghop > http://www.angeliquefelix.com/blog/made-with-love-july-2012-relaxing-flower-bath
Love,
Angelique
I love love love this idea! A large moms group of mine did it close to Easter, but I didn’t see the sign up in time! I was SO bummed I missed it!! It looks like a lot of fun and what fabulous ideas! Thanks for stopping by! 🙂
Oh how lucky to have people who will swap such brilliant ideas. I feel like I am always apologising to my friends for the activities I do with the kids. I like the Pom Poms in the eggs best and the pizzas but all the ideas are brilliant – so creative!
I’m in love! With this activity, this post, the entire blog! I’m so happy you left a comment on my blog so I could come over here and check this out 🙂
This is a great and wonderful idea. I like the Paint Chips and Paper Clips very cute!
I absolutely love the pizza idea! My girls would go crazy for that busy bag.
blogging about the pizza busy bag right now. 🙂
I love your ideas! I just recently made the pizza bag and I am still working on the letter tiles and alphabet cards!
I am new to your page, and let me say I am in LOVE! I ran across it when I began googling Busy Bag Ideas for easy things to pack for our flight coming up next month. I tried to open and print or download the pizza cards, but I can’t get them to download or print. If I print as they are, 1/4 of the top card takes up a whole page and the rest do not print at all. If I adjust settings, it will not print at all. Is there a file I can download as PDF by chance?
Hi Amanda!
I wish I could help you out but a friend of mine actually designed those when she made that busy bag (a few years ago) so I dont have access to the files. I think the best bet is to play around with your printer settings when you print it. Maybe theres a fit to page setting?
I was just getting ready to make the Pizza Factory busy bag, but the links to the cards have stopped working in the last couple of weeks. Looks like the files disappeared from your site. Any chance of bringing them back?
Should be fixed now!
Hi! I cannot find the recipe cards for the pizza factory. I would love to do it as a following instructions activity for my son. The link is not found. Thanks!
Should be fixed now!