Craft Time: Bean Bags!

Here's a fun, easy summer-time craft that ultimately gets you outside and moving!

All you need is:

- felt (or an old t-shirt, denim from when you turned those old jeans into cut-offs, any fabric really)
- scissors
- hot glue
- an old flyer or other scrap of paper
- tape
- some kind of filling such as dried beans, rice, or corn

And here's how you do it:

1. Cut out a rectangular piece of fabric about 6 inches wide and 8 inches long (a little bigger or smaller won't hurt!)

2. Fold the fabric in half hamburger style and crease/mark the middle.

3. On one half only, use your hot glue gun to carefully line three edges with glue leaving about a 1 1/2 inch gap for filling. Fold the fabric back in half pressing firmly to seal the edges and create a pouch.

4. Make a funnel - roll your flyer/paper into a cone shape making sure to keep a hole at the point. Secure with a piece of tape. Test it out using your filling. If the filling does not flow freely then cut the hole a little bigger.

5. Use your brand new funnel to fill the fabric pouch with beans, rice or corn.

6. Finally seal the opening carefully using hot glue. Double check all of the seams for leaks and reinforce weak spots with more hot glue.

Make a set of 4 or enough to go around. For even more fun try:
- bigger bean bags
- smaller bean bags
- different shapes
- different colors
- decorate with sharpies

And finally, now that you have a bunch of bean-bags here are a couple of ideas of what to do with them!

A hula-hoop and skipping rope are all you need to make a simple bean bag toss. Just lay down the rope in a straight line and lay the hula hoop a few feet away. Then all players stand behind the line and try to toss the bean bag into the hoop. 

But... if you want to make things more interesting I suggest finding a driveway or sidewalk and some sidewalk chalk. Here are some designs that have been tested and are child-approved! Change it up by adding more/bigger/smaller/different shapes or changing the point value (good for practicing math skills!).