Gross Motor Skills

DIY Bean Bag Tutorial

Beanbags are a childhood staple. As a teacher, I often used bean bags in my elementary classroom for lots of different learning activities. The possibilities are truly endless! Homemade Bean Bags are a perfect easy beginner sewing project and can help use up fabric scraps. The materials are practically free, and even if you have to buy a bag of beans for the filler, each beanbag only costs pennies to make. Make a set for the kids in your life and enjoy hours of fun!

DIY Beanbag Tutorial

Sewing level: Beginner
Time: 5 minutes
Cost: $0-$5

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Materials:

Square scrap fabric
Sewing machine
Thread
Beans (any will do!)
Hand Sewing Needle (optional)

How to Sew a Beanbag

Cut your fabric to a 4×4 square. You will need 2 squares per bean bag. (Mine were 3.5 inches square in the photo. They were fine, but a little smaller than I wanted.)
With right sides together, sew around the square. Make sure to start halfway down one side and stop sewing early, leaving a 2 inch space.
Clip corners, making sure not to clip the thread.
Turn the bean bag right side out through the hole. Use a pencil to push the corners out.
Place beans inside the bean bag. I used regular dry pinto beans that I’ve had in my cabinet forever, but whatever kind of beans you have at your house will work.
Sew the small opening shut. I used a needle and did a quick whipstitch by hand, but you can also use a sewing machine.

That’s it! So easy. Now, you’re ready to hand these to the kids and make up a game!

Easy Sewing Projects

DIY Door Draft Stopper {Easy Sewing Project}
DIY Plastic Grocery Bag Organizer {Beginner Sewing Project}
Ribbon Tag Blanket
How to Applique Without an Embroidery Machine

Follow Sara @ Happy Brown House’s board Sewing Tutorials to Try on Pinterest.

Raking Leaves Pretend Play

One of our favorite children’s books to read in Autumn is Fall Leaves Fall! It’s a colorful little book about two brothers enjoying leaves in the fall and all of their Autumn adventures–raking leaves, jumping in leaf piles, making leaf art, and more. As we were reading, Asher had some questions about what the characters were doing with the leaves. To help give Asher a better understanding of raking leaves, I set up a pretend play activity for him.

Raking Leaves Pretend Play and gross motor activity inspired by the book, Fall Leaves Fall by Zoe Hall.

Using a packet of fake leaves from the Dollar Tree and a kid’s toy rake, Asher (and the big kids) pretended to rake leaves in our living room. When the leaves were all raked into a pile, he counted to three and jumped onto the pile of leaves. While the sounds and smells of raking leaves were missing, Asher did get a chance to experience the gross motor movements involved in raking a pile of leaves.

Raking leaves is a good activity to help kids in motor planning and proprioception. While watching Asher rake, his movements looked awkward to me. We will continue this activity a few more times to practice and see if his movements become more fluid and less robotic.

Raking Leaves pretend play and gross motor activity

Raking Leaves Pretend Play Materials

We own and love the Toysmith Kid’s Metal Leaf Rake With Hardwood Handle. Since we love to add a book to most of our activities, we used Fall Leaves Fall! as our inspiration story.

A Book & a Big Idea

Want more Autumn and Thanksgiving activities inspired by kid’s books? A group of bloggers at iHomeschool Network are sharing their activities for their favorite Fall books today. Go see the rest of the great ideas at the Book & a Big Idea Blog Hop!