Preschool Activity Bags - WFMW

For Works For Me Wednesday this week, I'd like to show you the Preschool Activity Bags that I put together this Tuesday.

We homeschool and this year I have a very active 3 year old that I need to keep busy with her own "school" work while I'm working with my 6 and 9 year old daughters. In about an hour this afternoon, my 9 year old daughter and I put together about 2 dozen activity bags that my 3 year old will use during her "school" time when we start our lessons in a few weeks.

Here is a photo of the ones we put together today. I used various sized baggies that have the zipper-pulls on the top so my daughter will be able to open and close the bags herself.



Each bag has an activity that should keep her occupied for at least 30 minutes. Some are educational; all should be fun for her to do. Here's what we came up with so far in individual activity bags:

~ pipe cleaners and large pasta noodles - she can string the noodles onto the pipe cleaners and bend into shapes.
~ paper with large, straight black lines that she can practice cutting along
~ paper and a variety of stickers - she can sticker to her heart's delight
~ a pizza tray and magnetic numbers & letters she can manipulate on the tray
~ paper with shapes drawn on them - she can put stickers inside the shapes
~ sandpaper and crayons for textured coloring
~ self-stick foam shapes and construction paper
~ a bag of nuts and bolts that will work her fine motor skills
~ a magnifying glass and misc. items to look at
~ a magnet and misc. items to pick up with it
~ craft pom poms and small containers for her to organize by color
~ a small spool of yarn
~ a ruler and colored pencils
~ stackable containers
~ various sizes and colors of buttons to glue on construction paper
~ yarn and pasta noodles to thread on the yarn
~ a sand shovel and bucket for scooping dry rice or beans or the like
~ playdoh
~ paper for practicing cutting skills
~ water paints, paper and cotton swabs for painting activity

These are just some of the ones we managed to get put together today. I have more on my list that I'll put together in a few weeks once I see how these are working and how quickly she is getting tired of them.

I'm keeping all the baggies in a banker's box with her name on it. My plan is to let her pick out her "school" bag to work on while I'm doing school work with her sisters. Also, when I'm spending one-on-one time with one of her sisters, the other sister will work on a activity bag with her that requires some assistance - perhaps one with glue or painting involved.

The website I found that has a ton of examples for preschool activity bags is Paula's Archives if you want to see the great ideas listed there - many of which I used when putting our activity bags together.

EDIT NOTE: I've also heard of mom's having activity bag "parties" - Say you invite 20 moms. Each mom puts together 20 bags and brings them with her - then each mom gets one of each bag that was put together. Each mom then ends up leaving with 20 different activity bags - sounds like an idea to me!

Thanks for visiting my Works For Me Wednesday! You can see lots more great ideas at the link!