Remember I shared with you how I made this tote bag HERE? Well, I didn’t show you what was actually in the bag! I take this bag every Sunday to church in hopes that it will keep my girls happy and busy during Sacrament Meeting. Sometimes it works, other times we are forced to chase them out into the foyer (or on the stage behind the pulpit. Yep, that happened).
Anyways, I thought I’d share with you some of the fun items that are inside. Some are home made, others not.
I SPY bag. I made this bag and it was so easy! No sewing involved! In fact, the hardest part was finding all the little items to go in it! All you need is a binder bag (found at Walmart 98 cents), micro-beads, little trinkets, hot glue, and ribbon (to seal the zipper shut). This is so fun!
Here’s what I put in mine:
a little dinosaur
a little fish
foam heart
quarter
penny
small bow
hello kitty charm (off a dollar store bracelet)
bouncy ball
my little pony hair brush
I usually take a weekly trip to the dollar store after they get their shipment in just to see what fun finds there are. Occasionally, in the toy aisle they will have these mini magna-doodles. The girls love these so of course I had to buy 2 of them. The last thing we need at church is a brawl between them fighting over something!
These are the Melissa & Doug animal lace-ups. I think I found them at TJ Maxx for $6. These are always a good quiet toy to have!
I have a binder full of stickers, paper, crayons, and the oh-so-loved Color Wonder pages and markers! Love those for church because you don’t have to worry about the kiddos coloring on the walls with crayons!
I used an empty travel wipe case and filled it with scraps of old t-shirts. I cut the t-shirts in strips then tied them together to make a never-ending chain of fabric coming out of the case! This is great for those infants that are learning to pull everything out of everything!
Matching Game. This is one of my favorite things. I had photos of our family printed out in a wallet size. Four wallets came to a sheet so I just kept the other two for my wallet and other stuff. I glued the photos to printed card stock, then had them laminated with the heavy laminating plastic. I made sure to round the edges when I cut them so we wouldn’t be drawing any blood at church! The girls love this! I thought this would be really fun to do with church pictures/pass along cards since I use this at church.
Don’t throw away those cheap kids meal toys! I usually throw them away eventually, but sometimes you come across really great ones like these little linky toys that came from Wendy’s. The girls would never play with these if we were just at home, but when we are at church, they love building with them.
Paint samples and clothes pins. My girls are very articulate and love little things like this that they can do with their hands. I also love this game because it is teaching them how to match colors as well.
Here is another one of my favorites, colored felt popsicles. This is such a fun game to help match colors. Just use felt and large popsicle sticks. Just sew the felt popsicle except for the part where the stick inserts. The stick is removable so that the kids have to match what color it belongs to.
This is a great way to teach them to read too!
And since you’ll be buying a bag of popsicle sticks, no busy bag would be complete without popsicle stick puzzles! Just cut the picture in strips to the width of the popsicle stick and glue on! I numbered mine as well to help the kids with number order!
Don’t you just love how I’ve stored all of these separate activities in the binder bags? Perfect huh? Well, it wasn’t my idea! I saw it HERE!
I wish I could say that these busy activities worked every Sunday to keep my girls quiet and entertained but KIDS WILL BE KIDS sometimes, ya know?! I’m always looking for fun, new busy bag ideas to keep the girls on their toes!
Other sources for these ideas:
Oh my goodness Kami I love this, I think I should just pay you to make mine 🙂 So cute!!
Oh my goodness Kami I love this, I think I should just pay you to make mine 🙂 So cute!!
Way cute Kami! Where did you get the actual bag?
Kam you are a preschool teachers dream parent!! So cute!
Thanks for these awesome ideas! You will be seeing my kids enjoying some of these soon!!!
Kami, I want to sit next to you!!! Darling ideas.
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