Crafting!

Today, Jaxon and went to Hobby Lobby and Walmart in preparation for Mommy's craft day! Then, he played very nicely with his toys (and took two naps) while I worked! I made two Pinterest creations for the house, but I also made some more "busy bags" for Jaxon. I had planned on only making about 4, but as usual things spiraled out of control and I made 17. Pretty much, Jaxon will have educational activities for every stage until he is like 6.

I cannot take credit for any of the busy bag ideas or templates. In fact, the only ones I made myself on Photoshop are the Cheerios counting mat and the goldfish counting mat. My "creating," with many of these new bags, consisted of lots of printing, cutting, and using laminating pouches to laminate. If you want directions or printables for any of these things, just let me know and I can email them!

Goldfish Counting Mat


Pattern Block Mats (in a binder) - I found pattern block templates online along with the mats


Stringing Felt "Beads"


Counting and one-to-one correspondence


Tangram Mats - in a binder


Cheerios counting mat


Clothespin number match (it is two-sided and has numbers 1-20 and is self-checking!)


Short Vowel sorting cards


Lucky Charms sorting mat


Play-dough activity mats (20 pages of play-dough challenges in a binder)


Geoboard


Ways to make numbers 2-12 (addition)


Felt silly faces


Number match on felt


Not pictured is an "I Spy" mat, fishing game, and felt highway pieces for toy cars. I also made a "buried treasure" jar in a baby food jar. It is filled with sand and little jewels. I glued jewels to the lid to show him which ones to look for inside.

I am kind of proud and equally embarrassed to say that I have 46 busy bags and/or related activities!

Pinterest-inspired home things:

Birthday board:


Drink resting place - I'm hoping that this will keep cups from sweating all over the counter-tops throughout the evening. So far, so good!