So once upon a time I attempted to do a “toddler busy bag swap”. It was pretty much a bust. There were a few that turned out great, but overall, I’ve found that my level of OCD does not match reality when it comes to that sort of thing.
For those of you that don’t know what a busy bag swap is, it’s basically a big exchange of mini activities for toddlers. So I would make say 10 of the same activity to save money on buying tons of different types of materials, and all 10 people in the group would do the same. Then they dropped all of their things off to me and I put them all together, one of each activity for each person and they all end up with 10 different activities. Anyways most of them went straight to the trash because they weren’t toddler approved or durable enough. So therefore, I took on the task of making and designing my own. Not the easiest thing in the world, but it’s fun!
Check out my tag “busy bag” to see a bunch of different ones I’ve created or adapted from around the internet. This first one has a free printable for you and is adapted from here.
We have a really good time with this, and my 2 year old has been playing and matching these since about 15 months and on.
This is the car print out I used, and I just printed it out on different cardstock paper I had on hand! Super simple. And lastly, because remember that OCD we mentioned earlier? Ya I had to laminate them. Plus, have you ever seen how long a piece of paper lasts around a couple of toddlers? Not so long. The car tires are just wooden wheels you can find at Hobby Lobby or any other craft store with a unfinished wood section. I love how they turned out. We keep it all in a small zipper bag and pull them out anytime they want to play with them.
The semi moving truck letter matching busy bag was a lot of fun too. I didn’t want to spend a ton of time doing all 26 letters, so I just focused on my sons name and did upper and lower case matching. Here is the truck that I used. I colored them all in photoshop and then just printed, laminated, and cut different patterns between them. They are a big hit, because as you will see, there is nothing more my son loves than something with wheels.
And lastly, I have the roads in different shapes laminated! You can find the printouts here. All sorts of different shapes to help teach in a fun way and bonus! You get to have a road and car along with you anywhere you go!
That is definitely one of my focuses as I begin to homeschool. I want to take things that he loves and find ways I can teach him through those ideas.
Also you can see a little glimpse of our homeschool space here coming in a future blog! It’s nothing spectacular, but it’s our space and we love it.
Hope you enjoy! Thanks for stopping by! I’d love to hear any questions or comments you have!
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