Beans! Sorting, Counting! Busy Bag Idea

Grab an old sheet and let's get started! 

We use this old blue one for everything! I'm sorry if you have seen it in other posts and upcoming posts! It's just so handy to have around the house! 

I purchased three bags of dried beans at our local store. Buy whatever colors strike you as fun. I also focused on getting different sizes. 1 bag of large white beans, 1 of black beans, and 1 pinto beans. 

I get out just about anything that can scoop or move beans. 

We gather containers, funnels, measuring scoops, table spoons, everything that's fun! 

Let them scoop and dump, make piles, spread them around (within reason).

This is a great sorting activity! Help provide your kids with vocabulary such as largest, smallest, big, bigger, biggest.... 

please excuse the yucky picture, I bet you can get the gist

We got silly and starting making food troughs for our animals and pools for them to swim. 

Do whatever your kids want with this, just talk with them. It's so important to teach conversation skills and teach them the vocabulary by modeling it for them!!! I can't tell you the number of 5th graders I teach that lack, what we think is basic vocabulary, and the ability to hold a full conversation. Many don't even respond "How are you?" if they are asked the question first. 

All I can stress is TALK with your children! YOU are their first and MOST teachers!!!!

Mix and Sort

One of the cheapest activities with a huge amount of success! I purchased a bag of three different kinds of dried beans (store brand from the local grocery store added up to about $5 total). I snagged an empty folgers container from my parents to use as storage.

CP loves to scoop and dump the beans on the floor. We practice using old measuring cups and spoons to scoop and aim where we dump. (we watch closely to make sure nothing goes in the mouth.)

We spend time sorting the size, color, shape and discussion how they are alike and different. You'd be surprised how much kiddos understand at 19 months old.

 

As you may notice, by the end of our play session, beans are EVERYWHERE. Now we use an old sheet as a drop cloth and we can easily clean up stray beans. 

 

One of the best pieces of advice I can give is to place these in a safe spot and bring them out on occasion. I believe this is such a huge success and am able to get quite a bit of play time and focused attention on this is because it is out of sight, out of mind. "New" each time I bring it out.