MOMs Club- Busy Bag Swap

Busy Bag Swap Lineup!

Today, we hosted a Busy Bag Swap with the MOMs club. While the concept is not a new one, it was the first time that this group of friends got together in this capacity. For those who are unfamiliar with the idea, a busy bag is essentially an inexpensive, educational, transportable, quiet activity that can be thrown into Mom's purse and brought out at strategic moments (i.e. think long wait at the doctor's office, church, car ride, etc.) to keep a child occupied and busy.

Each of the seven moms came to the event with seven of the same activity- we signed up ahead of time to make sure there were no duplicates. Then, we traded with the other mothers to end up with seven unique activities. We all ended up with one of each of the following bags:

Color Matching- This is the bag that we made for the swap. This bag includes a mat with six colors printed on it and a handful of pom-poms. The child then matches the colored pom-poms to the coordinating circles on the mat. For older children, you can instruct the child to put a certain number of orange pom-poms on the orange circle, a certain number on the yellow circle, etc. Download the mat template here.

Cupcake Busy Bag- This bag includes felt pieces that can be put together to create "cupcakes." Download the patterns here.

Lacing Busy Bag- This bag includes cut out foam shapes with different colored yarn and shoelaces to lace through the shapes.

Are You My Mother? Busy Bag- Based on the childhood favorite book, this bag includes a pictures of mommy animals and the child must match them with the correct pictures of the baby animals.

Butterfly Counting Busy Bag- This bag includes a mat with pictures of butterflies in varying numbers and number discs. Then, the child must match up the correct number disc to the correct number of butterflies shown on the mat.

 Pipe Cleaner Canister- This fun, self-contained canister with colored holes in the lid includes colored pipe cleaners. The child threads the pipe cleaners through the matching colored holes. This seems to be Katy's favorite one, so far!

Shapes Felt Board Bag- This bag includes felt shapes that the child can use their imagination to create all sorts of patterns, objects and pictures.

It was so much fun to see all of the different bags- lots of creative mamas in our group! The Busy Bags were a big hit with the kids (and the moms!) and we had so much fun!!