Farm Busy Bag

Another Busy bag I put together was a farm busy bag. This bag required just me pulling some things together. I pulled out four books about farms that we already had and the little barn with stuffed animals that make noise.

We recently used this busy bag for a trip to the vet and it kept Little Guy busy for close to an hour!

Simplicity!  What would you add?

Color Busy Bag

So I am enjoying putting together busy bags!  (Can you tell?) One skill that  I have been working with Little Guy on is recognizing colors, so a color themed bag seemed perfect!

I put together this simple color matching activity, using clothespins and felt.  This idea came from The Pleasantest Thing.

This activity is great fine motor practice, as Little Guy has to thread the beads onto the pipe cleaners.  This idea came from Mrs. Kelly's Kindergarten.  I cut the pipe cleaners in half, making them fit into a spice jar.

The beauty of the spice jar is that it made the pipe cleaners into another activity: pushing the pipe cleaners through the holes in the lid!

I added three books and we were set. The Flaptastic Colors book was a great book to have as each page has a large flap to open to find things that are that color.

So we took this busy bag to the car dealership while we waited for an oil change.  Overall, it kept Little Guy quite busy (in addition to him playing with the stroller).
 

Putting our new bag to the test!  Stringing the beads.

Working hard to use the clothespin!

After the first use I made a couple of changes to the bag.  I added a little tray to dump the beads in. This is the lid of a small gift box. Little Guy really liked to dump out the beads, but if I wasn't ready, they went all over. The tray should help with that. 

I also changed up the books a little. The titles now included are:

• White Rabbit's Color Book
• Brown Bear,  Brown Bear, What Do You See? 
• Colors
• Colors (A Baby Einstein mini board book)
• Colors Nursery Rhyme Concept Book

So that is our color busy bag.

What activities do you have to practice colors?

More Airplanes

Little Guy is still fascinated by airplanes! I thought I would update you on his interest!

One of my friend's husband is a pilot.  At a recent visit to their house, he let Little Guy try on an old headset!  We had brought our book Airport with us.  Once he had a headset, Little Guy found the headsets on the pilots in the book and pointed them out. At first, he was hesitant to put the headset on his head.  Eventually (after everyone else tried them on), he did put them on.  It was super cute! 

Look!  There's the headset in the book!

I have on a headset!

Little Guy to Tower.  Over.

In addition to trying on an actual headset, our airplane collection has grown!

Not only do we have more airplanes, but our book collection has grown, too! We continue to check books out of the library, but now we have a few of our own. The Airplanes book makes different sounds, so it is a fun book.  Airport by Byron Barton is still a favorite, and so is Planes, also by Byron Barton.

Checking out his Planes book!

How do you continue to support your toddler's interests?

Transportation busy bag

What little boy doesn't love cars? Our next busy bag uses transportation as its theme.

I like activities that pull double (or triple) duty. This matching activity works on 3 skills: color matching, number recognition/ counting, and fine motor. On each clothespin are the colors of the cars to match. Each race car  has a numeral on it (1-6) which corresponds to the number of boxes on the clothespin. Finally, squeezing the clothespin and putting in the car is a great skill!

Of course, there are books included ( Little Guy loves to look at books!).  Two of these books are touchy feely books, which Little guy still enjoys. 

What transportation busy bag would be complete without some trucks? This one has a little bulldozer and fire truck.  The last activity included is a threading activity where you thread the cars onto the shoe lace (thanks Grandma A.). 

What would you add to a transportation themed busy bag?