Busy Bag Swap: Day 10 (Stoplight Toss & Other Bean Bag Games)

My oldest (she loves it when I say that) sister, Kyle, created the Stoplight Toss and other Beanbag Games games for our Swap.  If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that I reference her a lot as my "crafty" sister.  She taught me how to sew my first pillow a few years ago...and hasn't stopped teaching me new tricks ever since.  Kyle is ever patient with me during crafting.  And, she's often the inspiration for most crafty things that I do since she's constantly emailing me links to her favorite craft blogs or new sewing projects to add to our DIY Bucket List. She also shares my love for garage sales and thrifting.  When we see each other, we love to spend our time talking while we sew.  I often leave conversations with her challenged, humbled or encouraged by her love for Jesus and desire to reorient her life to Him.  I'm thankful for how the Lord has sweetly knit our relationship over the last five or six years; really, I'm so grateful that God has given me two sisters who I truly consider my best friends, now in life, more than ever. What sweet gifts.

(People often tell me how much my kids, especially McKlayne, look like my nieces, but I've really seen the resemblance for myself as I compare these last couple posts, here and here.  It's strange to hear that, because I NEVER heard that I looked like my sisters, growing up!  They always teased me that I was adopted!)

Family: Todd & Kyle, Reid (10), Stella (4), and Nash (2).

Blog: I think I used to have a family blog once here!

How do you spend your free time? Ha! I like to run, read, and cook. But my favorite way to spend my "free time" is probably sewing.

When you were a child, what was one of your favorite ways to spend your day? I liked playing with barbies and dolls. And "horse stables" outside with my sisters. We also each had our own paper doll family, that were just models cut out of magazines, that I loved to play with.

Fondest memory with your mom as a child? Probably her reading to me/us... Or summers spent at Key Allegro in Rockport. I guess this would fall under both memories of my mom and traditions, but when I was a little older (maybe 10 or so), my mom started giving me a pair of stud earrings for my birthday. I looked forward to getting those every year and still have all of them. Stella loves "borrowing" them to wear!

What does special time with your children look like? My 4 year-old has been really into crafting lately, which is awesome!  We all love to do simple things like just reading books while they snuggle up next to me or sit in my lap, or playing a game together.

Favorite outdoor activity with your kids? We like to play outside and go for walks, when it is not 100+ degrees outside! We sometimes walk to the library or to get donuts.

Favorite blog for children's activities/crafts/parenting? 
Made
Make It and Love It
Making Learning Fun
Oopsey Daisy's Mommy School.

A favorite tradition that you want to pass down with your children? We (try to) stay at the table after dinner and read the bible as a family. This has been a sweet time of drawing close to God and each other. I also hope they will treasure and remember special Advent activities that we do and will continue to celebrate Christmas and Easter in worship of our risen Savior!

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Stoplight Toss is a fun activity that teaches children color recognition, gross motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and traffic signal recognition.

Your children can stand behind a line and throw the beanbags on their matching colors.

I got the idea for the stoplight game here.

Variations:

Have someone call out to the thrower. You could call out colors OR "Stop!" = Red, "Slow down! = Yellow, or "Go!" = Green. (Of course, this one was only thought out AFTER the cards were made. It has been added to the download now! Sorry about that!)

You could also tape the stoplight to the wall for overhand throwing practice.

Here's how it works:

Each kit comes with 3 beanbags (red, yellow, and green), a stoplight gameboard, and a deck of 17 game cards. One card has the instructions for Stoplight Toss. The other 16 cards are different games your child can play with their beanbags.

Here's how I made them:

For the beanbags:

1. I gathered yellow, red, and green fabrics and cut them in 4 1/2 inch by 4 1/2 inch squares. For 26 bags you will need 52 of each color.
2. I sewed 3 of the sides together leaving one side open to fill.
3. I filled the bags with rice, about 1/2 a cup.
4. I then sewed the remaining side shut. I used my serger, so all my seams are on the outside.
5. Clip the strings and glue each corner with fray block (or fray check).

For the stoplight:

1. I got black poster board and cut it into 4 pieces. Each piece should measure approximately 7 x 22.
2. I got red, yellow, and green foam (like this). I really wanted adhesive foam, but couldn't find it.
3. I got an appropriately sized cereal bowl and an x-acto knife, and ran the blade around the upside-down bowl (on a self healing cutting mat!) to cut circles out of the foam.
4. Glue circles on the pieces of cut poster board to make a stoplight.

For the instruction decks:

1. I printed out pages 1-4 of this 26 times. (Here is the original blog post from Create.)
2. And then my amazing brother-in law, Charlie, created these to explain the stoplight game. I printed 7 of those sheets out to add to my 26 decks of cards.
3. I cut out all the cards, punched a hole in them, and clipped them together with a binder ring.

Ready to make your own? For 26 busy bags, I used:

• 5 sheets of foam in each color (red, yellow, and green) from Hobby Lobby - .89 each
• 8 black posterboard .89 each
• x-acto knife
• self-healing mat
• cereal bowl
• rice (I used 1/2 cup per bag. I got the 25lb. at Sam's and probably used 2/3 of it.) - It think this was under $8. Can't find my receipt!
• 52 squares of fabric cut at 4.5 inches per color (red, yellow, and green)* <$9
• 104 printed pages of beanbag game cards (you can print double sided if you wish) on cardstock - also purchased at Sam's 250 sheets for $7.23.
• 7 printed pages of stoplight beanbag toss cards (these cannot be printed double-sided) on cardstock
• binder rings (purchased at Office Max) $6.29
• hole punch

Total = $50.99
That is $1.96 per bag.

*Note: I got my fabric at thrift and garage sales. The red and green were both cuts of fabric someone was getting rid of and the yellow was a jersey sheet. While I like that they turned our sort of sensory, (red is silky, yellow is soft, green is scratchy) I didn't feel I needed quite as much fabric as I bought. You could probably go to a fabric store and buy the fabric for just as (if not more) inexpensively and way more convenience.

Literature Link: Red, Stop! Green. Go! or Go Dog. Go! both by P.D. Eastman

Downloads:
Stoplight Toss Instructions
Other Bean Bag Games from Create

**Terms of Use: We'd love for you to feel free to use the files that the ladies in our Busy Bag Swap have worked hard to create, but please keep in mind that the printable images and files on this site are some of our ladies own exclusive designs. They have been generous enough to freely share them.

The terms of use for using the free printable crafts and activities are as follows:  You may share these printables with students, friends, neighbors and family or even with your child's class full of children. As long as you share for personal use only. Please do not post printables on a web site - instead provide a link back to the original posting on this site. Linking to the original page is both welcome and appreciated.

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I'M NOT SURE WHY IT HAPPENED LIKE THIS...BUT IF YOU'RE LOOKING FOR DAY 9, IT'S HERE.

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Go check out Rainbow Noodle Lacing on Grow today!