How to Make Bean Bags for Kids–It’s Easy!

If your family is housebound, make some bean bags for the kids. There are so many ways to keep kids entertained with bean bags, and it’s an easy sewing project.

I made some bean bags for Miss T when she was a toddler. It was a toy she could grasp easily and throw. As she got older, it became a fun toy to improve her hand-eye coordination.

How to Make Bean Bags

Here are three simple ways to make bean bags, depending on what you have available to work with. A bean bag 3 inches square seems to be a good size for both babies and older children.

• Baby’s old sock: Fill baby’s sock with rice or dried beans. Hand stitch the opening closed. I stitched mine with contrasting yarn and added a yarn bow.
• Fabric scraps: Cut two pieces of fabric 3 1/4 inches square. Stack the two squares so the right side of each square is on the inside. Pin in place. Hand or machine stitch around three sides of the square. Fill with about 2 tablespoons of rice. Fold in the raw edges of the open side 1/4 inch, and stitch closed.
• Felt: Cut two felt pieces 3 inches square. Stack the two squares and pin in place. Top stitch with a sewing machine 1/4-inch from the edges along three sides. Fill with about 2 tablespoons of rice. Pin the open side closed and stitch 1/4-inch from the edge. Push the rice away from the sewing edge as you sew, to keep the machine needle from breaking on the rice.

What to Do with Bean Bags

• Target Practice: Depending on the age of the child, use a bigger or smaller vessel and set it nearer or farther away. For little ones, have them aim for a large carton. As kids get better, move the target farther away and decrease the size of the container.
• Points Challenge: Instead of having just one vessel to toss bean bags into, lay out plastic containers of different sizes and shapes, and assign points–the more difficult the challenge, the higher the score.
• Go on a Quest: Create a course throughout the house featuring different challenges; one could be tossing a number of bean bags into a particular receptacle, another could be jumping cleanly over a pillow. Build an imaginary fairy tale around the quest. You could have a doll at the end point and the story could be about a prince or princess rescuing a sister from the evil knight, for example.

For another kind of treasure hunt, use slips of paper to write the clues.

• Treasure Hunt: Hide the bean bags in a specific room. Give rewards for the most bean bags found. Or hide a bunch of different objects and give kids a list of things to find to claim their rewards.
• Bowling: Set up empty plastic bottles, such as water bottles, for kids to knock down like tenpins, with their bean bags.
• Juggling: Learn to juggle from an expert.

What Kids Learn

A diversion during a housebound day, bean bag games can also serve as a teaching tool for kids.

• If you make felt bean bags in primary colors, little ones can learn to identify colors. They can also count the bean bags for numbers practice.
• All ages will improve hand-eye coordination as they play various tossing games.
• Kids will learn that even the simplest of props can be entertaining.
• Kids can use their imagination to design more bean bag games.

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