Toddler Busy Bags

First, my inspiration: 

When we moved to our new house nearly two years ago, we left our church behind. Finding a new church in our neighborhood was always on the radar, but cabin life made it difficult since we're usually there on the weekends. Therefore, our new church either needed a weekday service we could attend, or we'd have to find two churches -- one in the Cities and one near the cabin -- that we could attend wherever we were on the weekend.

Two churches sounded complicated to me. Plus, who really wants to go to church on Sunday mornings when you're at the lake? It sounds horrible to say it, but I'm just being honest. I wanted to find a church we'd actually attend and have opportunity to serve. The arrival of Baby #2 really kicked things in gear when Andi and I decided to baptize the baby in the Cities (vs. Nebraska at my parent's church where Tory was baptized). Baptizing the baby in our own church meant we needed to find a church and join it before the baby's birth in November.

So, Andi found a church in our neighborhood that holds a Wednesday night service. We've been attending for a few weeks now and we feel at home there. The trouble is, this is Tory's first time attending church on a regular basis and it's rough. At 1 1/2 years old, it's challenging to get an "active" toddler like ours to sit still for longer than a minute. Somehow, we have to teach her to sit nicely for 60 minutes! The church does not offer a childcare nursery during services because they believe children are more connected to God when they're involved in the service which, I actually believe. My sister's girls (age 5 1/2 and 9 months) behave very well in church because they attend often. Practice makes perfect. But ... that doesn't mean it isn't painful to teach my child to sit nicely during church.

I also realize Tory is only 1 1/2 years old. There's only so much I can require from her. I would like to teach her to be quiet during the service, sit or play nicely. No running away, climbing the pew or shrieking. Every Wednesday, I find myself scrambling to pull together interesting quiet toys and activities to keep her entertained during the service, so I decided to assemble a series of toddler busy bags. That way, I can easily pull a few bags for a service and she'll have something new to play with (on rotation) every week. I put all my toddler busy bags in a small storage tote so I can grab a few, toss them in my purse and head out the door. The idea is to have enough busy bags to rotate each week, so Tory stays interested in the items I bring.

Toddler Busy Bags:
I take no credit for the craft ideas. Descriptions on how to make each one are linked accordingly. Of course, I put my own spin on each craft as I was making them.

Felt "Paper" Doll
I've been working on a giant felt board with a variety of characters for Tory to play with for some time now, but I made a special felt board busy bag for her to take along to church. This one includes two felt dolls (think paper dolls, but more durable), dresses, pants, shirts and hair styles for her to create. So far, this busy bag has been a big hit with Tory. She piles all the clothing on one doll and claps her hands as if saying "look what I made, mama!" Very cute. I think this activity will become even more enjoyable as Tory grows older and she really understands what she's creating.

How I made this: I printed out the template linked above, then traced and cut out felt shapes. I took it a step farther by hand-sewing details onto the outfits. Total completion time: one hour, tops.

Felt Fishing Game
How I made this: Similar to the felt dolls, I made a fishing game for Tory. I sketched a fish shape from paper and used it to trace the image onto felt. I cut several colors of fish (two colors for each fish). The tutorial suggests hot glueing the fish together with a washer inside. I decided to hand-sew mine together and used a magnet inside instead. I duplicated her instruction for a fishing rod using a pencil, yard and magnet.

Tory loves the fish activity and knew what to do right away. Big hit!

*Note: After letting Tory play with this one a few times, the only thing I'm going to change is the magnet glued to the bottom of a piece of yarn. I think I'll tie a washer on instead because I'm nervous the magnet is going to fall off the string. Other than that, Tory loves this game.

Popsicle Matching Colors
How I made this: Using felt again, I sketched a popsicle template and cut the shapes from felt. I sewed two pieces of the same colored felt together to form a popsicle "pocket," sewing together all sides except for the bottom. Then, I wrote colors on popsicle craft sticks and stuck one in each felt popsicle.

This one is too advanced for Tory to read the colors on the sticks, but eventually she'll be able to do it. Until then, I drew a colored circle on each popsicle stick so she can identify by sticks by color. If nothing else, she seems to enjoy just pulling the sticks out and putting them back inside the pockets again ... even if they weren't correctly coordinated by color.

Popsicle Stick Magnets
This busy bag activity was simple. I hot glued a magnet to each end of a popsicle stick. Then, I let Tory go to town sticking the popsicle sticks together. She got a big kick out of the magnetic push between the two sticks and liked putting them together and pulling them apart again.

Popsicle Stick Puzzle
How I made it: I Googled an image I thought Tory might like (I selected a cow), printed it and Modge Podged the paper to several popsicle sticks. After the glue was dry, I used a scissors to cut apart the sticks.

My tips on this one: 1) Let the glue dry first. 2) I numbered the popsicle sticks in order so they'd be easier to see which order they go in. Except, I numbered them on the back, left to right, and when you're looking at the picture-side of the sticks the numbers read backwards. Next time I'll number them again but do it right to left so they'll be in order when you turn them around.

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I also added a few quiet toys to the bin:

Pocket Doddle
I found an off-brand travel-size Pocket Doodle at Michael's Craft Store a few weeks ago in their Dollar Bin section. Seriously, $1! I wouldn't say the quality of this toy is as great as, say, the name brand Fisher Price ones but for the purpose, this does the job. I've only busted this special treat out for Tory at church so it stays interesting.

Crayola Color Wonder Markers
My mom gifted Tory this Crayola Color Wonder travel case, complete with special write-only-on-the-correct-paper markers and a coloring pad. I brought this to church for Tory last week and it occupied her for about 10 minutes. WIN, I'd say.

Good Ol' Paper and Pen
I don't let Tory use a pen at home, so she was delighted when I pulled out a travel-size notebook pad and pen the other day and let her go to town drawing and writing. She played with the paper and pen for quite a while; I just had to keep my eye on her closely so she didn't write on anything she wasn't suppose to in the pew (she grabbed for the hymnal a few times ... eek!)

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Since I was already making these for Tory, I also made an extra sets to give as "Big Sister" gifts for my cousin's little girl, Lauren, and my friend Lindsey's daughter, Ashley. My hope is these activities will help keep their little girls entertained during those first few months of having a newborn at home.