- Like
- Digg
- Del
- Tumblr
- VKontakte
- Buffer
- Love This
- Odnoklassniki
- Meneame
- Blogger
- Amazon
- Yahoo Mail
- Gmail
- AOL
- Newsvine
- HackerNews
- Evernote
- MySpace
- Mail.ru
- Viadeo
- Line
- Comments
- Yummly
- SMS
- Viber
- Telegram
- Subscribe
- Skype
- Facebook Messenger
- Kakao
- LiveJournal
- Yammer
- Edgar
- Fintel
- Mix
- Instapaper
- Copy Link
Preschool age is one of my favorite age groups to work with. First of all, they are curious, every little thing becomes a learning opportunity, and they LOVE pretty much everything.
Keeping them occupied can be a predicament though. Because attention spans are short on those in the five and under crowd. Finding activities that keep kids learning, little hands busy, and make life easier for the parents – well, that’s a definite win in my book.
My friend Sara, from Happy Brown House, recently wrote a book that does all three of those things. Busy Bags Kids Will Love is full of quiet boxes, bags, and bins (52 to be exact) that can be made ahead and brought along to play with in the van, at doctor’s visits, church – anywhere really!
Why Busy Bags?
The name ‘busy bags’ can be deceiving. Busy bags are more like educational activity kits that parents (or teachers) put together for children to play with either in moments a parent may need a little break (maybe you’re helping another child or trying to cook dinner) or when a quiet activity is needed.
Busy bags also take on many different forms – from items in an actual bag, to bins full of fun, or even a box packed with learning supplies. In essence though, they are intended to keep the attention of little ones while providing something educational and fun.
Creating Your Own Busy Bags
In her book Busy Bags Kids Will Love, Sara shares 52 activities that are easy to put together and focus on several specific learning areas:
- math
- fine motor skills
- literacy
- and just plain ol’ fun.
While we don’t have preschoolers in this house at the moment, we do have nieces and nephews that visit, so we’ll be making up some of these ideas and also sharing them with the grandparents. Between visiting kids and games our girls grab when babysitting, these are goldmines!
Each activity includes skills that are targeted, materials needed to create, and detailed directions to make the activity with full color pictures. She really makes it very simple!
The bulk of the materials used are ones you can find in your own closet or inexpensively at the dollar store. There are some that require very little prep, while a few may need a little more time, BUT they are all easy enough for you to make.
What I love most about these activities is the full intent for LEARNING that is packed into them. Yes, they will keep little hands occupied, but as they are busy, they will also be taking in and processing key information for this early stage: 1:1 counting, matching colors, identifying numbers, matching ABCs and so much more!
In addition, Sara also shares 100 things children should know or be able to do before entering kindergarten. Sometimes it’s not all just about the alphabet and numbers. Overall, the book is truly a fabulous resource for any family with young children or those who work with them.
Grab a copy for your home or school from these sellers:
- Amazon
- Barnes and Noble
- Books-A-Million
- The Book Depository (free worldwide shipping!)
- Target
- Indie Bound
Win a Copy!
To celebrate the release of her new book, Sara has generously offered to give a copy to one of my readers. Follow the directions in the Rafflecopter widget below. Giveaway is open to those with a US mailing address and ends on Sunday, June 25th at midnight.
The printables shared on this site are FREE of charge unless otherwise noted, and you are welcome to download them for your personal and/or classroom use only. However, free or purchased printables are NOT to be reproduced, hosted, sold, shared, or stored on any other website or electronic retrieval system (such as Scribd or Google docs). My printables are copyright protected and I appreciate your help in keeping them that way.
If you download and use some of my printables and then blog about them, please provide a link back to my blog and let me know - I'd love to see how you are using them! Please be sure to link to the blog post or web page and not directly to the file itself. Thank you!
I am teaching a pre-school play camp ages 3 to 5 and this book looks like it would be great for easy activities at some of my centers!
I have a 3yr old who needs to be occupied or he ends up making huge messes.
I may understand that all too well. :)
I have an almost 6 year old, an almost 4 year old, and an 18 month old who all need hands on, no screen time activities. This book would be fantastic! It also would be great to look at before my family reunion in July since I am in charge of activities for kids.
YES!!! This would be perfect!!
My busy ones are an almost kindergartener (age 5) as well as 2 toddlers running around my home daycare both under age 2 but both running at full speed, literally.
Hang in there, girl! :)
my son is almost 2, my girls are 4 and 6
I have a special needs 4 year old, who is ready to start learning colors and numbers and letters! This would be great for the summer!
My 4, almost 5, year old!
I have an almost two year old and an almost four year old, who are the youngest of several older homeschooling siblings, so this book would be perfect! I’m too busy to come up with all these ideas myself, yikes! She has made it so cute and fun I actually would enjoy putting forth that extra effort to put these together for my little ones, and then we’d all reap the rewards.
My son is getting ready to enter kindergarten next year. The few busy bags i have made ready for him help him transition and not interrupt during his sunday school and Awana Cubbies evenings. I would love more ideas. Thanks for this opportunity!
I need this for my 2.5! He’s always on the move and it makes homeschool days kind of hard. These look great!
I’ve got a very active 5 year old boy, a 3 year old girl and a newborn to keep busy during homeschhol hours with our 4 older children! I am always on the lookout for good educational, fun ideas!
I’ll be teaching the Pre-K/K class in our co-op this year. This is my favorite age! They’re SO precious!
13 and 6, thank you
My kids are 3, 6, and 10. It would mostly be for the younger two!
From 1 to 13 years of age ~ I plan on gifting this to my kids’ daycare provider; older kids can help the younger ones create :-) win-win in keeping kids of all ages occupied during summer break.
My Grandson is 5 years old. He would love this book!