Very Hungry Caterpillar Busy Bag

I love the idea of busy bags.  Since I will be a stay at home mom, there will be times that Little Guy will have to come with me to appointments or other places where there may not be toys for him, so I want to have activities ready to go.  In fact, I am so intrigued by the idea of busy bags that I have a Pinterest board dedicated to them!

I love the story The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle (whom Little Guy shares a birthday with!).  The first thing I did for this bag was to make the story out of felt. (I had a lot of felt leftover from making the Quiet Book, so I only had to buy one piece of purple!)  I got this idea from Familylicious via Pinterest (of course). I cut and hot glued all the different types of food together.  To get Little Guy involved, I had him help me create the butterfly.  I pre-cut the pieces, and had him lay them on the butterfly's wings.

Getting ready!

Hard at work!

Here is our beautiful butterfly!

The complete set of felt items for our busy bag.

The next idea I also got through Pinterest.  This idea is from Here Come the Girls.  I used a craft foam sheet and cut a leaf shape. Then I used a hole punch to put holes around the edge. The caterpillar is made from a red shoelace, a piece of a red pipe cleaner, a piece of a green pipe cleaner, and of course some googly eyes. I hot glued it all together to help make it secure.

Isn't that a cute caterpillar?

The last activity included is bead threading.  I picked up a bag of large wooden beads at the thrift store recently. I painted one red for the head and nine green for his body. I used a green pipe cleaner and glued it into the red bead, which also helped to create a nose. I added ears and eyes (of the googly variety). Little Guy can thread the beads onto the pipe cleaner to make the caterpillar.  This activity fits nicely into a large spice jar.

String a caterpillar.

All done!

All the parts of this busy bag!

So here is the completed bag. It has the felt story, the leaves for lacing, the caterpillar to thread, a book, and a small stuffed caterpillar. I can't wait to try it out!

What ideas do you have for busy bags?