Rainbow Themed Busy Bags

Woohoo! It’s almost St. Patrick’s Day and all things Rainbow-right? You may have little one’s aching for some new Busy Bags. Well, you need to gather all the rainbow colored items around your house and make up some super fun Rainbow themed activities.

I know that we need to freshen up our Busy Bag collection as Spring comes. We will begin to be in the car more running errands, attending programs, and heading to the park. Gotta keep those little ones learning and engaged at a drop of the hat. Here are some of my favorite ideas via Pinterest!

Rainbow Themed Busy Bags

Start by gathering simple supplies like buttons, beads, pipe cleaners, pasta, fabric bags, foam, felt, small containers, pencil pouches, etc. You may have items to copy and create an activity for a busy bag exactly or you might just find a great improvisation that suits your little one or the supplies you have on hand!

Be sure to keep in mind all the small pieces and choking hazards! If you have a crawler and a preschool like us then really watch out and count your pieces before AND after you do an activity. Do not want to find out you are missing some buttons or beads!

1. Threading  Buttons on pipe cleaners by matching colors first is a great skill to learn from Diapers to Diplomas. You can often find pipe cleaners and buttons at your local craft or dollar store. These are choking hazards so watch around children who stick things in their mouths or near younger tots and babies.

2. Super quick and easy Foam Sorting by Color and Shape from The Rigney’s. Both of these items can be found at the dollar store. This is one of the items that came in a Busy Bag Swap. Great for teaching shapes and differentiating between similar shades of color if you use red, orange, and yellow.

3. Gather all sorts of baubles and bits to create a Color Sorting bag from Counting Coconuts. I would include small containers, pill box, or little felt mats for the items to be sorted. The sky is the limit for the types of items used from beads to buttons to porcupine balls to matchbox cars,etc.

4. Practice great hand eye coordination by matching and Stringing beads on pipe cleaners with tape flags from  MRS. KELLY’S KINDERGARTEN. Just so happened to find bags of pony beads at a garage sale for .50 per bag of individual colored beads. I made this activity for the swap as well.

5. Another great color matching and fine motor skill activity. Grab some paint samples from your local hardware store and some paperclips for this fun Paint swatches w/ matching paper clips activity from The Princess and the Tot.

 

6. If your child likes to sort then this  Color Junk Sort from Katherine Marie Photography will be the perfect quiet time activity for your child! I love the added element of counting the items as well as matching and sorting. One-to-one correspondence is a great skill to introduce early and practice daily.

 

 

7. I found sticky magnets at JoAnn’s to make this Busy Bag Pom Pom Magnets from Having Fun at Chelle’s House. Once you make 30-40 pom-pom magnets you will be all set for all sorts of matching and counting fun.

 

8. Try having a Color scavenger hunt with Color Sorting Bags just like Chasing Cheerios did. Great way to get your child active and engaged in their quest for learning about colors.

 

Hope you have fun creating Rainbow Busy Bags and hope your little one has fun playing with them. Be sure to leave a comment if you try one of these out or if you create a busy bag idea of your own.

Have you seen my other Busy Bag posts:

• Busy Bags 101
• Busy Bags in Action
• Easter Busy Bags
• 10 I Want to Make
• Vehicle Busy Bags
• More Busy Bag Ideas from Pinterest: Follow Thaleia @ Something2Offer’s board Busy Bag Swap on Pinterest.