We love busy bags and have been using them for a few years now. I find that they are especially helpful in keeping my youngest occupied and having fun while I work with the older kids on homeschooling or other projects. They are also great for road trips or waiting rooms.

These 5 busy bags can all be made with pipe cleaners and most of the other items required are things you likely already have around the house. These are very inexpensive to make and all are very simple.

Pipe Cleaner Bead String

Materials needed:

• beads (shaped ones are cute to add but plain beads work too)
• pipe cleaners
• large resealable bag

This couldn’t be simpler to make. Place some pipe cleaners and beads into a resealable bag and this busy bag is ready to go! Kids can enjoy making bracelets or doll necklaces or bookmarks while they practise their fine motor skills.

Potato Chip Can Pipe Cleaner Drop

Materials needed:

• empty potato chip can (such as Pringles)
• hole punch
• coloured reinforcements
• pipe cleaners in matching colours to the reinforcements
• optional: scrapbook paper

Punch holes in the lid of an empty potato chip can (I used a Pringles can). Add a coloured reinforcement sticker to each hole so that the colour surrounds the hole. Add pipe cleaners that are the same colours as the reinforcements into the can. I folded the ends of the pipe cleaners down so that they wouldn’t be sharp but for some kids this isn’t necessary. I also glued a piece of scrapbook paper around the Pringles can just to make it look nicer but this is optional.

Your child can then thread the pipe cleaners down the holes that match the colour. This is a great activity for fine motor as well as for learning colours.

Magnet Busy Bag

Materials needed:

• empty plastic bottle
• pipe cleaners, cut into smaller pieces
• magnetic wand

To create this fun activity, cut pipe cleaners into pieces and put them into an empty plastic bottle. Your child can then use the magnet wand on the outside of the bottle to move the pipe cleaners around and explore how the metal pieces in the pipe cleaners react to the magnet.

Pipe Cleaner Shapes

Materials needed:

• pipe cleaners
• paper
• pen or marker
• resealable plastic bag

Busy bags don’t have to be complicated. You could create or use some fancy shape cards for this or you can do what I did and just draw simple shapes on paper. Your child can then try to replicate these shapes using one pipe cleaner or by combining several pipe cleaners. Store the pipe cleaners and shape papers in a resealable bag.

Pool Noodle Stack

Materials needed:

• pool noodle, cut into pieces
• permanent marker
• pipe cleaners
• resealable plastic bag

To create this busy bag, cut up a pool noodle and number the pieces with a permanent marker. Put them into a resealable bag with some pipe cleaners. Kids can either stack the pieces and work on their counting and number recognition or they can thread the pool noodles onto the pipe cleaners.

Just to give you an idea of how much of a pool noodle making this busy bag will use, with one pool noodle, I made this busy bag for Dancing Queen, made this busy bag for each of the ladies that came to my sensory bin swap, and made a Seaside Sensory Bin. So one pool noodle yielded five busy bags and a sensory bin!

Some of our other busy bags:

7 Busy Bags for Learning Colours

7 Busy Bags Made Using Paint Chips

If you are looking for more busy bag ideas, you may want to follow my Activity Bags board on Pinterest or if you are just looking for some great ideas for kids, you may want to follow my most popular Pinterest board, For Kids.

Follow Sharla Kostelyk’s board For Kids on Pinterest.

I love busy bags! I initially made them to have on hand for Dancing Queen to use while I was homeschooling her older siblings. Even though she is 8 years old, developmentally she is between 2 and 3, so it is like having a toddler in many ways. She is too distracted to sit through most homeschool lessons and this proves challenging for the other kids and I. Busy bags are something she can do quietly on the floor, at the table or at her desk and be occupied but still learning at the same time.

They also have proved to be great for other things as well. They are perfect for bringing with us for waiting rooms or road trips and even my older kids enjoy doing them. This past weekend, Dancing Queen sustained a concussion falling over five feet off my brother-in-law’s deck. We grabbed three busy bags to take with us to the hospital which helped her to stay calm while we were waiting and then in the following days when the doctor’s instructions prohibited her from doing most activities (no TV, no electronics, no active play, no reading, no schoolwork, etc.), she was able to do simple busy bags.

Here are 7 busy bags that help children learn their colours. All of them are simple to assemble and most cost next to nothing to make.

Potato Chip Can Pipe Cleaner Drop

Materials needed:

• empty potato chip can (such as Pringles)
• hole punch
• coloured reinforcements
• pipe cleaners in matching colours to the reinforcements
• optional: scrapbook paper

Punch holes in the lid of an empty potato chip can (I used a Pringles can). Add a coloured reinforcement sticker to each hole so that the colour surrounds the hole. Add pipe cleaners that are the same colours as the reinforcements into the can. I folded the ends of the pipe cleaners down so that they wouldn’t be sharp. I also glued a piece of scrapbook paper around the Pringles can just to make it look nicer but this step isn’t necessary.

Your child can then thread the pipe cleaners down the holes that match the colour. This is a great activity for fine motor as well as for learning colours.

Paint Chip Color Sort Busy Bag

Materials needed:

• paint chips in various colours
• pompoms
• feathers
• medium or large resealable bag
• optional: tweezers for fine motor practise

This activity bag is so easy to throw together. Put pompoms and coloured feathers in a bag with paint chips and have your child match the colours. They also can do patterning if you add in different sizes of pompoms or work on fine motor if you add in a pair of tweezers.

Paint Chip Colour Swatch

Materials needed:

• paint chips
• binder ring
• possibly: hole punch

For this busy bag, I used paint chips that already had a hole punched in them which saved me a step. If yours don’t have a hole already, punch a hole in the corner of each paint chip and thread them onto a binder ring. This activity takes seconds to make! Your child can then use the ring to match colours in their colour swatch to objects they find in their environment.

Clothespin Colour Wheel

Materials needed:

• cardboard
• wooden clothespins
• permanent markers
• medium or large resealable bag

Cut a piece of cardboard into a circle. With a black permanent marker, section it. It may be easiest to use a ruler for this. Add a splash of colour to each section with a permanent marker. Colour the ends of wooden clothespins in the same colours used on the colour wheel. Add the pieces into a resealable bag. Your child can then match the clothespins up to the corresponding colour.

Foam Colour/Number Match

Materials needed:

• foam pieces
• coloured clothespins
• permanent markers
• medium or large resealable bag

Using a permanent marker, write a number on each foam piece (we used hand shaped ones). Put the foam pieces along with clothespins in corresponding colours into a bag. Your child can either clip the amount of clothespins as the number written or clip the same coloured clothespin as the foam.

Fine Motor Colour Match

Materials needed:

• small empty plastic containers
• coloured paper
• pompoms
• paper clips
• tongs
• large resealable bag

Put a circle of coloured paper in the bottom of empty plastic containers. We used individual applesauce containers. Put them in the bag along with a pair of tongs, coloured paper clips and pompoms. Your child can practise both their fine motor skills and their colour matching as they sort the paper clips and the pompoms.

Paint Chip Colour Matching

Materials needed:

• paint chips (you will need 2 of each colour)
• wooden clothespins
• glue
• large resealable bag
• optional: large hole punch

To make this busy bag, you need to take two identical paint chips and cut a shape out of each shade of colour in one. I used a heart shaped hole punch. Glue these shapes onto the ends of wooden clothespins and place the intact paint chips and the clothespins into a resealable bag. This activity is effective as a more advanced colour matching game as some of the shades can be similar and difficult for kids to differentiate.

If you are looking for other busy bag ideas, you may be interested in following my Activity Bags Board on Pinterest. Last week, I shared 7 Busy Bags with Paint Chips.