Busy Bag Swap

One thing I love about living in my neighborhood is my totally awesome neighbors. And Tommy's super cool friends. 

Our neighborhood probably sets the record for most babies born in a short period of time ever in the history of the universe.

The year Tommy was born he was one of 11 or 12 within a month. His friends with the biggest age difference were born just 2 or 3 months away from him.

So when I put it out on facebook that I wanted to do a "busy bag swap" I immediately had 14 other women who wanted to do it too.

We each picked a Busy Bag idea and made 14 of them. Then today we did all the swapping so we'd have 14 things.

Here's what we wound up with.

Pipe Cleaners & Pony Beads
Make patterns, match colors, bend twist and lace, whatever.

Counting Number Cards
Someone with cute handwriting wrote and drew circles on these number cards. Tommy's into colors right now, so that was his goal with every game. 

Color Shade Matching with paint Samples
Clothes Pins with paint sample pieces make for a nice challenge for  Tommy. 

Memory
Glued simple pictures onto foam. Tommy would play this all day long. 

Color Sorting
1 blue and 2 red, or all the red in one cup, or mix em all up. Tommy is definitely a fan of color sorting.

  

Colored Noodles
Dye noodles, the possibilities are endless. Sort by color, sort by shape, thread them on a string with a washer on one end and a piece of pipe cleaner on the other end.

Puzzles
Laminated pieces that fit on the background picture.  Not a  great picture to demonstrate what it is....

Felt Board
there are face pieces, and house pieces and they stick because they're felt.

  

Push the Ball Through the Hole
There is also a spoon to put them in without the lid, and color matching on the map of the world. But Tommy was fascinated with putting the things in the holes and mostly focused on that.

Number Wheel
If Tommy learns nothing but how to open a clothes pin from this, it will be worth it.  He just wanted to  put these on and take them off again all day long.

Felt Pizza
"One pineapple for Mommy. One for Tommy. No olives for mommy!" This boy knows (and loves) his mother.

Lacing Cards
Punch holes in a foam shape and add a shoelace.  Ta-da!

Marble Maze
You just have a marble sewn inside and push it around. This pattern  looks almost boring it's so easy, but  it's surprisingly challenging for my kid anyway....

Popsicle Stick Puzzles
I was surprised at how quickly Tommy caught on to this one.

And just liek that Tommy has a buncha new games to play and he loves EVERY single one of them. Best swap party ever.