Simple Color Matching Busy Bag for Toddlers and Preschoolers

 

I love busy bags and so does my son! A Busy Bag is simply an activity in a bag that was made to keep your child busy. Most are small enough that they can fit in your purse or in a diaper bag, so that you can carry them with you. They come in handy when you are out to eat or waiting in the doctor's office. This is a really simple and easy to make busy bag to make for your toddler or preschool aged child. With this simple busy bag, your child can practice color sorting, counting, and patterns. All you need is some popsicle sticks, magnetic strips, and colored metal paper clips.  Simply cut the magnetic strip to fit on the popsicle sticks and glue it on using a glue gun. Throw them in a bag with different color paper clips and you got yourself a busy bag! Have your child match all of the same color paper clips on the sticks. Your child can practice counting by counting the number of paper clips on each stick. You can also challenge your child to use the paper clips to make simple patterns.

 

Vegetable Garden Busy Bag

 

 

I made this busy bag to go along with our Vegetable Garden Sensory Tub that we are working on for next month. I printed the free printable, which you can find here, along with other great free garden themed printables from Home School Creations.  After it was printed, I laminated and cut the pieces out. I added magnets on the back so that it can be used on a magnetic board as well. We are using it for vegetable recognition. Can you add the squash to the basket? How about the cauliflower? My son loves his vegetables, but he doesn't know the proper name for all of them. With this, he is learning and having fun too!

Our Magnetic Discovery Box-- Dicovering and Learning While We Play!

 

Today, we put together a Magnetic Discovery Box. We used a magnetic wand to discover what is and what isn't magnetic. I filled a plastic bin with beans, some magnetic letters, nuts and bolt, an Altoid tin, pieces of pipe cleaners, twist ties, coins, erasers, crayons, pom poms, and more. Before we started, I asked my son to make a hypothesis (he actually knows what that means thanks to Dinosaur Train on PBS) and guess which items he thought would be magnetic and which wouldn't be. Then we began to explore!

 

 

 

He stirred the mixture up to see what would stick.

 

We tested his hypothesis to see if it was correct.

We learned a lot and had fun in the process!

 

 

Bottle Cap Mickey Mouse Magnets-- Only cost me $2.00 to make!

 

I picked up these Disney Mickey Mouse Bottle Cap stickers in the  scrapbooking section at AC Moore, they were $2.99, after my 50% off coupon, they were $1.50. I removed the sticker foam that  was inside of the bottle caps and glued magnets in there place. Where else can you get 8 Mickey Mouse magnets for under $2.00?