Shape Matching Cards Busy Bag

This is my last busy bag for now. I have a few more in the works so I'll add tutorials for those when I get a chance. Today's bag is for shape matching cards. This are a little advanced for B right now, but he'll grow into them soon enough.

For this project I hit up the dollar store again and found these packs of foam shapes and a pack of pre-cut foam cards (the same ones I used for my bean counting game, there were plenty of cards for both busy bags!)

The bad news about dollar store foam shapes is that they don't just pop apart. So I had to start by cutting each shape out by hand. An hour later....

Once the shapes were cut out I started assembling the cards. For each one I used a sharpie to draw a line dividing the card in half. Then on the left side I laid out a few foam pieces and used a hot glue gun to attach them to the card. The idea is that B will use extra pieces to copy the pattern on the right side of the card.

I think this one is my favorite. I used the edges of the foam sheets to cut out some of my own shapes, like the leaves on this card. I made sure to cut out plenty of extras for B to play with, too.

Some of the cards I made are easier and some are more challenging (especially the ones with a second layer of shapes). I wanted B to be able to use them for a while so I wanted some of them to be a little harder . Here are a few of the cards I made:

I made sure I had plenty of extra shapes for B to use for matching. As I made each card I pulled out the shapes he would need to match my design and stuck them in the bag to make sure I didn't use them by mistake. Once my cards were finished I tucked them in the bag too and called it a day.

For more creative play you could also just pull out all the loose pieces and let the kiddos make up whatever shapes and designs they can think of! For this busy bag I bought two bags of foam shapes and one pack of foam cards from the dollar tree, so my total cost was $3.

Do you use busy bags at home? Do you have a favorite?