Tons of Ideas for Preschool Busy Bags

I went through a phase where I was obsessed with toddler and preschooler busy bags. I was part of a mom’s group and we did a giant swap of busy bag activities (so big I got five blog posts out of it, check them out if you’re in that age group) and I always loved having those handy activities for on the go or quiet time or when I just needed a minute to get something done.

At Arrows and Applesauce, she has busy binders instead of bags, with each activity in a pouch that kids can easily flip through and pull out what they want to use. (This would also work in a box, with each activity in its own bag.)

She has a post all about what’s in her busy binders. There are two of them, one relating to letters and colors, and one full of activities about numbers and shapes. There are lots of great ideas here even if you don’t want to make a big binder full of activities right now.

Do you have a favorite busy bag idea? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo: Arrows and Applesauce.]

One of the subjects that’s often covered in preschool is learning about the five senses. Understanding our senses helps us describe the world around us and our experience in it, and it’s fun to explore the senses in different ways.

Rock Your Homeschool has a great free printables pack having to do with the five senses. I love the foldable activity shown above because it emphasizes that the way we really experience our senses is through our brains. They also have a sensory scavenger hunt printable, which doesn’t include taste but has the rest of the senses included.

Of course we don’t really want kids tasting things they find outside (unless you happen to have fruit or vegetables growing nearby) but I like the way Hands on Teaching Ideas handled it by including “something an animal would eat” on their five senses scavenger hunt.

Sea of Knowledge has lots of ideas for things to do with preschoolers to learn about the five senses, as well as this free with email signup template for making a five senses craft (you could also trace the child’s hands instead of using the hands in the template if you like).

Use a potato head toy you probably already have to play a five senses game with the download from A Little Pinch of Perfect. You could do the same thing on paper with a potato (or human body) shape and color on the different sense organs.

Simple Everyday Mom has a cute set of senses puppets you can print and play with, or use for different projects and crafts.

Preschool Packets has a whole set of posts dealing with teaching the five senses (the one linked here is for hearing but the rest are linked within that post), which includes a great idea for making shakers with kids to explore the sense of hearing.

Tim’s Printables has some cute five senses printables where kids can match the image to the sense you’d use to explore it. There’s also a body to label but I think there’s only a male version.

Have you read?

Leave a Reply