How the Busy Bag Swaps Will Work

If you have not heard from your coordinator and it has been more than 3 days since the swap you signed up for closed, please check your junk and spam folders. If you still cannot find something, email me. There are a lot of people not receiving their coordinator's email.

(If you would like to be notified of future swaps, please visit the Busy Bag Swap page.)

What is a busy bag? A busy bag is a ziploc bag containing an activity that would give your child something to keep them busy, either with you or without you. Visit the previous swap's post for more information.

There was so much interest in the last swap, and so many more people have expressed interest since then, that I decided to do more swaps. The busy bag swaps will be grouped by the following categories.

• Toddlers (ages 1-young 2s): very simple activities focusing on "in and out", "poking", "open and close", etc.
• Preschool-Young K (Adv. 2s-Young Ks): activities focusing on shapes, colors, alphabet, numbers, and just plain fun
• Kdg-2nd gr (those gaining reading skills): more advanced activities encouraging reading and math skills, but also lots of fun
• Reading and Math Activities Only (kdg.-2nd gr.): games and activities centering around basic reading and math skills

Each category will have its own blog post where you can sign up to join in the swap. Choose which swap (or swaps) you want to join and make sure you sign up in the right blog post. (I am working on getting each swap posted and will come back here and post a link in this post as I get them posted. If you don't see your swap category posted yet, be patient.)

Toddler Swap is now closed.

Preschool-Young K Swap is now closed.


K-2nd now posted.


Math & Reading coming soon.


What the difference between the K-2nd and the Math and Reading Only?

The first (k-2nd) is a set of activities that are mostly just fun (but may have hidden education in it). These are activities you can hand your child and let them entertain themselves for a while. They should be (hopefully) things that the child will want to do on their own. The goal is not so much to teach them as it is to give them something constructive to do.

The second (math and reading only) is for the sole purpose of teaching your child. These are games or activities that you can use in your homeschool or to reinforce what they are learning in school. They are not so much made for the purpose of giving your child something fun to do when they're bored as they are to make what they HAVE to do a bit mroe fun. The activities will be centered on math and reading only. There will be no "just for fun" stuff.

There are no people count limit (unless it gets ridiculous). We will just take all the people who sign up and split them into different swap groups. For example, if 90 people sign up for the preschool swap, we will split those 90 into 3 groups of 30 people. So we would have 3 preschool swaps going on simultaneously. Did that make any sense?

There have been a few people who volunteered to be swap coordinators. These people will be assigned a swap group to coordinate. They will sort through the top three choices of each swapper and assign activities. They will be responsible to keep in contact with the swappers throughout the swap, should they have questions. They will receive the busy bags from the swappers, compile them into sets for everyone, and then mail them out to each swapper. If you would be interested in coordinating a swap group, please email me (link in sidebar). Judging from the last swap, the activity sorting may take a couple hours, and the busy bag divvying and packaging will take about 4ish hours of your time one afternoon and a trip to the post office.

Here's how you become a swapper and how the swap will work:

1) You visit the blog post of your choice of swap category (or categories). Read the instructions, choose your top three choices for an activity to assemble, and then fill out the form. The form will be up and the swap open for 48 hours, unless the number of swappers becomes unmanageable.

Filling out the form is not a way of expressing interest. It is a commitment to be a part of the swap. It is not fair to the other swappers if a handful of half hearted interest people sign up, only to flake out at some point. That would mean that many people spent time and money assembling 30 activities, but would not receive 30 in return. If you're not sure if you can handle the expense or the time investment at this time, then maybe you should pass this time around. If however, you do sign up with full intentions of participating, but then realize that for some reason you are unable to continue, please let me or your swap coordinator know right away, so that we can contact someone else who would love to be involved.

2) I will sort through all the swappers, group them into swaps, and notify the coordinators. Each group will have 30 members and a list of 5 "fill ins" should someone drop out (to try to keep it at 30 people). These five will be taken from those who signed up last, so the sooner you sign up, the more likely you will for sure be a swapper.

3) Either I or your swap coordinator will contact you within about 3 days' time with your activity assignment.

4) You then have 2 weeks to assemble your busy bags (30 of the same activity). You need to have them in a box and in the possession of the U.S. Mail service exactly two weeks from the day you were contacted by me or your swap coordinator, or by the date stated in that email.

5) You should invest no more than about $1 per bag. We're not wanting to spend a fortune here. If you're having trouble sticking with the budget for your activity, please contact me and I will help you figure it all out.

6) Once you have your 30 bags assembled, you would pack them up in whatever size box you like and ship them using any shipping method you prefer to your coordinator.

7) But before you seal the box, visit USPS.com and print a shipping label with postage for a large flat rate box ($14.20).

Shipping change

I talked to the post master at my local post office about the mailing date that is required when printing a label. He was very kind and helpful, and assisted me in thinking through the best option for dealing with shipping the busy bags to you.

For legal liability reasons, a package must be mailed the day the shipping label says it was. Since the drop down on the Click-N-Ship label form only gives four days to choose from, there's really no way we can post date the shipping labels late enough to give the swap coordinator time to divvy the activities, package them up, and reship them. It also would not allow for any unexpected delays.

For this reason, it would be best for each swapper to include a check or money order, made out for $14.95, in their package of busy bags. Your swap coordinator will let you know who to write the check out to when she informs you of which activity you will assemble.

Please also include a 3x5 card (or equivalent sized paper) with your name and address clearly printed on it. Your swap coordinator will use this as a mailing label.

8) Remember, you need to have them in a box and in the possession of the U.S. Mail service exactly two weeks from the day you were contacted by me or your swap coordinator.

9) I or your swap coordinator will sort through the bags, divvy them up so everyone has one of each. If we do not receive your package by the date we previously stated in our email to you (when we assign the activity), we will contact a fill in and see if they would like to jump in at the last minute. If you take the time to assemble the bags, please make sure you send them on time.

10) Once the bags have been sorted and divvied, we will ship them to you, and we then each have a collection of about 30 activity bags to pull out when needed!

(If you would like to be notified of future swaps, please visit the Busy Bag Swap page.)