20 Busy Bag Ideas

Make a Sock Puppet Kit: includes pair of socks, felt, pipe cleaners,
googly eyes, beads, fringe, and instructions.

Make a Monster Face

Wooden Numbered Beads Lacing Kit: includes color and number pattern cards

Denim Fabric Roads: scrap fabric from old jeans and yellow puffy paint makes great portable roads!

Clothesline: uses twine, clothespins, and felt clothing.  Patterns for clothing found here.

Clothespin Color Matching Game: uses paint chip cards

Ribbon/Button Snake with Felt Squares: a slit is cut in each square so little fingers can work on pushing the button through

Felt Playmat

Play-Doh Dots Game

Pipe Cleaner, Bead, and Pasta Lacing Activity

Popsicle Stick Puzzle

Make Your Own Stick Puppet

Pom-Pom-Stuff-It-In

Numbered Pool Noodle Lacing Activity

Peanut-Butter-and-Jelly Stacking Game with Dice

Felt Cupcakes with Sprinkles

Stacking Cups, including one object to hide

"Fish Stix": a felt pond, fish with paper clip mouths, and a magnetic fishing pole

Mix & Match Sticker Game

Glitter Bottle (with water, glitter, ribbons, beads, and other objects) and two "I Spy" Bottles (with rice and several objects hidden inside)... lids glued securely shut, of course!

Creative Play with Play-Dough

Some fun things we've added to our stash of play-dough tools lately: spaghetti (uncooked, of course!) or other kinds of pasta, googly eyes, Cheerios, popsicle cleaners, and pipecleaners.  The kids had fun making play-dough monsters/aliens the other day.  Thanks to this homemade play-dough recipe (it really is super simple to make, as long as you have cream of tartar on hand!) and this Artful Parent post, where I got the creative play ideas.  Next on our list: a play-dough volcano!
 

Homemade Playdough

Poor Kate was a little upset this morning when Brian and Jack went to Deming to pick up our "Happy Birthday Jesus" cake without her. I would have been a little worried about spending the morning with such a cranky girl... until I remembered a fun kids' kitchen project I'd been saving for awhile: homemade play-dough! The original idea I saw was for Candy Cane Playdough (get that "Artful Parent" tutorial here), which I think would be a lovely idea to give out as classroom gifts.



Today, however, we decided to play it simple and just do one plain batch. We had so much fun! Kate loves to help in the kitchen. And it made her forget all about her brother's trip to Deming.

Ingredients:
5 cups water
5 cups flour
2 1/2 cups salt
3 Tablespoons cream of tartar
10 Tablespoons vegetable oil
Food coloring

Instructions:
Mix water, salt, cream of tartar, and food coloring in a large pot. Cook on medium-low heat, stirring regularly until mixture is hot. Add oil. Stir in flour a cup at a time, stirring in between each addition. Each cup of flour will make the dough more and more difficult to stir as it becomes thicker! Mix until playdough pulls away from pan and is no longer sticky (pinch it between your fingers to test). Dump dough on counter, let cool a bit, then knead. Keep playdough in a freezer bag at room temperature. This recipe makes a lot and lasts for several months!
*Recipe from this "The Artful Parent" post.