Ridiculously Excited

My friend, Jenn, invited me to be part of a busy bag exchange this Saturday and it's almost embarrassing how much fun I've had with this! I made fifteen number wheels and labeled clothespins for kiddos to match the correct numeral with the wedge containing that number of dots. Easton and Kiana both love playing with this activity and I just can't wait to share the bags with all the other little kiddos.
I found so many cute ideas online and just couldn't wait to have more options for my little ones, so I printed off a sheet of practice letters and numbers and shapes, put it in a page protector and stuck it in a bag with a dry erase marker so we had two activity bags to keep them quiet in church. This went so well, I decided to pick up a few paint sample cards and make the shades of color activity so the children could practice matching different shades of the same color.
I thought this would be especially good for Kiana who sometimes gets confused when confronted with a lighter shade of a color, but Easton thought it was great fun too.My very favorite idea that I came across was the Clothesline Busy Bag, but I groaned inwardly at the thought of cutting out all the clothes for fifteen bags/children. Briana and I had fun, however, cutting little dresses, shirts, pants and short out of her fabric scraps for Easton and Kiana.I am not exaggerating when I tell you the little ones played with this bag for HOURS! We just tied the yarn ends to two chairs, handed them the clothes and pins and told them to "please do the laundry."They worked ever so intently and thought they were really big stuff.I like some of the suggested ideas to extend the life of this busy bag, including telling the children to hang the clothes in patterns (dress, pants, dress, pants) or letting the children use a couple washtubs with soapy water and rinse water to wash the clothes before hanging them, but my children haven't had need of further suggestions yet.They even came up with the idea on their own to take the laundry down, put it in a little tub (laundry basket), then carefully fold all the laundry.I guess they've been paying a little more attention than I sometimes realize--and perhaps it's time to assign them more laundry responsibilities!!

I can't wait to see what other fun bags we'll be adding to our collection after the busy bag swap.