For ages I’ve been wanting to make those fantastic looking “busy bags” that are all over the blogs, pinterest, and the wide world of the web. But between homeschooling, keeping housing, ministering to our church, and keeping my toddler out of the toilet water and electric outlets and glass dishes, I never seem to find the time for making those crafty little inventions—until I had an “a-hah!” moment organizing my Christmas gift list.
One of our Christmas traditions is to let the kids make gifts for each other rather than buy them, so when I got to wondering what on earth my kids could make Littlest for Christmas, I suddenly had an epiphany of all my pinterest board ideas getting made for me by my incredibly crafty minions children! Voila! What a wonderful gift to Littlest and to me!
And really, they were more than willing, even super excited about the idea. I bought up felt in a variety of colors, some stiff felt and some soft felt. Then, the only other major supplies were a Sharpie marker and a few good scissors (as in new, sharp scissors not kid safety-scissors). My kids are pretty handy with scissors and were closely supervised, so I let them have at. But do proceed with caution.
The felt was very easy to work with. I drew our designs right on the felt and let the kids do most of the cutting. All working together, it took us a little over an hour to make all of these. Very do-able.
We made…
- a pizza with toppings
- a face with funny facial features (several different eyes, mouths, noses, and hair) (original idea found here)
- a forest scene
- a garden scene
- felt roads for his little cars (original idea found here)
- a “hide the mouse in the house” game (original idea found here)
- plus a few motor skills activities with threading and buttons
We are all super-excited. The kids can’t wait to play WITH Littlest in his new quiet games. I can’t wait to have a few quiet activities he can do during our school time. And we knocked out two projects in one swoop: a Christmas gift and my busy bag wish list.
Curious about our other homemade gifts? The “big” kids will be making our own story stones for each other. Can’t wait for Christmas!
