MOPS Craft Project - Activity Bags

I've been the coordinator for our Mothers Of Preschoolers (MOPS) group this year, and we don't have many leaders, so I have been doing the Craft projects.  I thought I would share our craft this last week.  Our topic was on depression (I know, a depressing topic!), so to keep little ones busy while at appointments or car rides, we made busy bags for the car.

I found these cinching backpack bags at the Dollar Store:

There were two different designs, the other one had a beach ball on it.  You could use as small rubbermaid or a book bag too, but I was looking for something that was cheap.

We made 3 different activities to put into the bag.  The first is a popsicle stick puzzle that I got from HERE at Tot School.  This only required popsicle sticks and different colored Sharpies to make. 

One of my personal favorite activity to make for my kids are the I Spy bottles.  What you need for this project are:

• Empty Water Bottles
• Small Items to put into the bottle (See the picture below for ideas)
• Photo of items
• Hole punch
• Yarn
• Rice
• Funnel
• Hot Glue Gun and Glue

To make these:

1. Find all the small items, and lay them out on a piece of white paper.  Write the name of each below and take a photo.  Send photo in to develop.  Just a side note: I prefer to use a developed photo from store, because the photo paper is more sturdy.  If you were printing this at home, I would print it on cardstock and then laminate it for durability.
2. Fold the picture in half with the photo on the outside.
3. Punch hole in corner.
4. Run yarn through the hole.
5. Use funnel to put about 1 inch of rice in the bottom of bottle. (This prevents the items from being stuck in the bottom)
6. Put items into the bottle.  
7.  Fill with rice, leaving about 1/2 inch of space at the top.
8. Hot glue the cap on.
9. Tie picture to the bottle with yarn.

You could do themes in the bottles. Some ideas would be:

• Each letter of the alphabet: A= toy apple, Letter A, acorn, etc.  B= button, bean, bead, blue, etc.
• Colors 
• Outdoors
• Numbers
• Seasons

Really the ideas are endless!

Here is the picture I took and the things I included.

 The next activity we made were sewing cards.  Again, these were very easy to make.  All you need are:

• Foam shapes (I even found a pack of these at the Dollar Store)
• Hole punch
• Yarn
• Scotch tape
• Scissors

This activity could challenge your strength in your hands, because it's a little tough to punch the holes in the foam, but worth it!  My two year old loves this one!  There's no right or wrong way to punch, just make sure it's not close to the edges.  Cut a piece of yarn to go through.  I used the Scotch tape to wrap around each end, so the yarn didn't unravel and it worked as a "needle", too.

This activity took us about 30 minutes to make, but we had a great time visiting while we did it.  Not to mention how excited our kids were when they saw the bags we brought home.

I pin a lot of ideas about making Busy Bags under my Homeschooling: Busy Bags board on Pinterest and any ideas for Creative Activities for MOPS under my MOPS board.  You can follow me here on Pinterest:

Prairie Scraps

I will be sharing this post at the blogs that I love in the right hand column of my blog.  Be sure to leave me your feedback, too!