Mr. Push It busy bag

Loving this activity.  L.o.v.e. I.t. 

I do have to say that this may be the best preschooler Busy Bag out there! At least it has been the most interesting to my young preschooler so far!!  We get to use an everyday item and recycle it (snack container) plus all the items store inside for easy access.

We tried a different version of this Busy Bag called Pom Pom Stuff It In (per MoneySavingMom’s blog)…used a yogurt cup and cut slits in the top for stuffing in pom poms.  But my preschooler kept getting his finger stuck in the hole and just using pom poms was uninteresting after awhile.

I know there was also a version somewhere that used pipe cleaners and a Pringles can…but even if you wash the can, those chips always seem so greesy to me! 

After my boys quickly ate through a tub of Ritz Bitz, :) I wanted to recycle the container somehow and realized that it was the perfect container for a mix of the two activities!  We called it “Mr. Push It” because my little guy kept saying ‘pushhhh’ as he was pushing in each item.

To create, we started by letting my two preschoolers have ‘craft time’ and color a bunch of hole reinforcement stickers with markers. Then I got out my special single hole punch and hammer (back from scrapboooking days!) and whacked a couple of holes.  After the boys added their stickers around the holes, we found matching pipe cleaners and pom poms for each color. 

Two adjustments had to be made:
1) The holes were a bit small for the pom poms so I snipped a quick rectangle down the center for easier manageability by my two year old.
2) Plus we had to cut the pipe cleaners in half to fit the length of our container.

We made this two days ago and my preschooler has played and played with it.  Since creation, it has been found randomly in our rec room and in the kitchen and in the dining room….meaning that he has carried it around and played with it at different times all on his own – AND cleaned it up on his own! 

This Busy Bag activity is getting permanent residence in our Busy Bag Box as well as a copy is being made to go in the diaper bag!

The 3 P’s busy bag – Pinchers, Pom poms, Paper clips

The use of clothing pins or plastic tweezers (or for this bag, called “Pinchers”)….oooh, it’s such a fun item.  At least according to my 2-yr old.  He actually hasn’t said that per say; but once he finds the pinchers, he carries them all over the house and tries to use them on a variety of items.  So I think it’s safe to say that he enjoys using them.  And really, the hand motion of ‘pinching’ isn’t a skill used with many toys; at least not with toys like we have such as tractors and trains.

This busy bag contains a variety of pom poms and paper clips to be picked up and dropped into ____fill in the blank___ and is great for growth of finger dexterity and hand-eye coordination.  Plus the pom poms are just fun to play with!  The large pom poms measure over 1 inch wide down to much smaller pom poms.  And the paper clips are standard and jumbo sizes. Obviously the balls are easier to pickup with the pinchers than the paper clips but I’ve noticed that it’s a good combo -- one item may get frustrating for tiny fingers so they’ll resort to the easier items but will regularly go back to the harder to grasp items…all the while building skills.

We’ve used a variety of ‘trays’ for the items to be placed into.  Ice cube trays work nicely for the pom poms or jars or plastic tubs or glass cups.  We found also that this became a more time consuming task if the tray had more compartments because my little preschoolers wanted to fill all the ‘holes’ (versus 3 cups).  But I know this will be a repeat hit because of those silly little pinchers!

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