What is a Swap?

A busy bag swap is a group of moms who each assemble and swap a set number of busy bags. Each mom assembles the set number of bags of the exact same activity. The moms then exchange the busy bags, so that each mom has one bag of each activity. Our swaps are done locally (in the St. Louis, Missouri/Illinois Metropolitan Area) but if someone out of town is interested in participating, and is willing to pay shipping to ship their activity bags to us, and pay shipping for us to ship all the combined swap activities back to them, then they are more than welcome to participate.
If you're interested in participating in a swap, just fill out our form on the Swap With Us page. We'll contact you when we are organizing a swap in the age range you specify on the form.

If you participate in a swap you will choose (or in some cases, be assigned) a different activity which you will replicate a certain number of times (our first swap had 16 participants). We meet for a playdate and get-together, share the activity we've made with the other moms and give each mom a gallon-sized ziplock bag containing the activity.

Each busy bag activity meets the following criteria:

• Self-contained.  This way, you can just grab a bag and GO! (without having to add a number of supplies to the bag in order to make it useful.)

• Transportable.  Yes, they will definitely be used at home, but you may also want to be able to grab a few bags to take to a restaurant, a waiting room, plane trips, car rides, etc.

• Convenient.  None of the bags will have supplies that require major set-up or clean-up: (no paint, watercolors, liquids, sand, dirt, etc.)

• Inexpensive. You should expect to spend about $1 per bag to assemble your activity

• Easy to Make: No one should need to spend hours and hours and hours making their activity.

• Re-usable. These activities should last a while so that our other children can use them in the future. Therefore, activities where you would have to buy new supplies to re-stock the bag are avoided. This is also why lamination is important for some of the activities.