So "toddler activity bags" are all over the Internet...You know what that means? There's lots of mommies needing some time to breath : ) True right?! Well these bags don't necessarily provide alone time, but they are great fun for kids and provide good learning opportunities! What I like most about "toddler bags" or "activity bags," which ever you want to call them, Is that it gives my tot an opportunity to independently choose a learning activity! So instead of me saying, "today we are going to work on patterns" She can just go to the activity box and make her own selection. The other thing I really like is that it keeps her interest longer because she can choose a couple of bags at once and go back and forth between the two! These days her attention span seems to be shortening so this is a great thing, for me and for her :) I also like that these activities can be done with me (more direction) and without me (more freedom.)
When I first started reading about these bags I thought the best approach would be to ask a friend to join me one day and we could just bang it out and make one zillion bags each! After better thought, I decided the best approach for me would be to make 2 or 3 bags at a time when ever time permits! So here's where I started!
Where's the Cheese
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| I got this idea from "theiowafarmerswife" . I did it a little differently by adding numbers on the houses which allows more flexibility to it...You can work not only on colors but also number recognition. Since my tot is a little older we use this for numbers and directions: up, down, left or right! |
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| So the idea is to hide the cheese and guess where it is! "is it under house number 5?" etc... She also enjoyed playing this by herself by helping the mouse find the cheese! I made this game using spay adhesive to glue felt to a piece of cardboard (from a cereal box I pulled out of my recycle bin, I do that a lot!) Then just cut the felt houses, mouse and cheese! Easy! |
Go Fish!
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| Not a ton of education value here, but it does provide some hand-eye coordination! I did this in less than 2 mins...while M was eating breakfast! For more educational value, you can go fishing for magnetic letter in a bath full of water! I saw that somewhere but can't remember where to site, sorry! |
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| OK so this took a little more time, I admittedly got caught up in the details! : / But I think it turned out really great : ) I adapted this activity from secondstorywindow (many more"toddler activity bag" ideas on there!) Instead of using dots I used animals and "feeding sacks" just to make it a little more fun! I wish I knew how to share the document here for you to have...that would make this a quick activity to make! I made this in a word document and added clip art. Cut it out, glued (spray adhesive again!) to cardboard (cereal box) and put laminating paper on top! |
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So the idea here is for your tot to count the animals and give them the right amount of "food." Fun right? Obvious skill here: counting and number recognition.
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For organizational purposes I made sure all these activities could easily fit into a large zip lock bag. I then labeled the bag and put them in the "activity bucket" which is easily accessible to Maddy!
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