A Mini-busy box is a compact, creative play and discovery box for children, designed to keep them busy in a playful way and to stimulate their senses and motor skills. The idea behind a Mini-busy box is that children do not always need large, expensive materials to play and learn. With small, everyday objects they can already discover and develop a great deal, both cognitively and physically.

How to make a Mini Busy Box?

1. Choose a small box : A shoebox or a sturdy plastic box is perfect to use as a base. The box should be easy to open and close, and large enough to hold several small items.

2. Gather a variety of materials : Choose objects that stimulate different senses. Mix different textures, colors, shapes, and functions so that children have varied experiences.

3. Divide the items into themes : You can customize the contents of the box thematically, for example by seasons, colors, or certain skills such as pinching, sticking, or rolling.

4. Add simple instructions : For older children, you can put small cards in the box with simple instructions. Examples include: "Find something soft," "Put all the blue things together," or "What does this object sound like?"

5. Personalize the box : Make sure the box is tailored to the child's interests and age. This will keep them engaged longer and help them learn more from playing.

Examples of small things to put in the busy box

• Buttons : Different colours and sizes stimulate fine motor skills (e.g. threading or sorting).
• Bottle Caps : Good for practicing grasping, sorting, or counting.
• Cotton balls or cotton wool : Soft materials that encourage children to use their sense of touch.
• Pieces of fabric : Different textures such as velvet, cotton or silk can stimulate the sense of touch.
• Straws : Perfect for cutting, building or using in creative activities.
• Beads and string : For practicing fine motor skills and concentration.
• Pipe cleaners : Flexible material that children can bend into different shapes.
• Mirrors or reflective materials : For visual stimulation and self-discovery.
• Rubber bands : Good for practicing coordination and muscle strength (e.g. tensing and releasing).

What does it encourage you to do?

1. Fine Motor Skills : Children use their hands and fingers to grasp, twist, thread, and manipulate objects. This promotes hand-eye coordination and hand strength, which is important for activities such as writing, cutting, and drawing.

2. Sensory development : The box offers various stimuli for the senses – touch, sight, hearing. Objects with different textures, shapes and colours help children to refine their sensory perception.

   

   Waterbeads/orbeez for sensory motor skills, feeling and experiencing. These small balls become larger and slippery if you put them in warm water for a few hours. They suck themselves full. That is a fascinating spectacle. And then when they are big enough with your hands in them and feel. Try to grab them, let them slide through your hands. The soft funny balls help with processing stimuli and relaxing which is so important right now. Put on some soft music and enjoy.

   Read more:
   Collection of play suggestions

3. Creative thinking : The box encourages free play and creativity, as children are encouraged to use the materials in their own way and create their own scenarios.

4. Concentration and Patience : Performing fine motor tasks, such as stringing beads or sorting small objects, requires concentration and patience.

   

   The mini lemniscate is currently a very popular skill game. A lemniscate is an endless lying eight and this one here is mini, as the name suggests. It is a challenge for the hands, the eyes and your patience. But if you succeed, it is relaxing and satisfying. Really indispensable in the busy box

5. Problem Solving : When children figure out how to perform a task or manipulate an object, they learn problem-solving skills and practice their cognitive development.

   

   With the finger eyes you can read together. The eyes go along with your finger at the words and reading becomes different and perhaps more fun in this way. But you can also stimulate the imagination with small eyes. Let the finger eyes doll tell a story or experience a story. Make up the stories yourself or tell the story that you have just read together. Maybe you can also act it out and tell it and make a short film of it.

   Experimenting

   

   A bottle jellyfish: experiments with a soda bottle and also training the hand muscles and cooperation of both hands. How does this work. The preparations are already a challenging activity in itself. Find and rinse the bottle, check the cap. Examine the jellyfish before it goes into the bottle. What will happen and why?
   Is the jellyfish in the bottle in the challenge to squeeze the bottle in the right way and rhythmically, so that the jellyfish starts dancing. Can you do it? Not yet? Then maybe look up a video on the internet with an explanation and example. Try until you succeed.
   If you want to know how this works, watch the video in the webshop and read Simone's blog: "to strengthen muscle tone"

6. Self-confidence and autonomy : By working independently with the Mini-busy box, children develop their self-confidence and sense of autonomy, because they discover and learn new things themselves.

   

   The smallest and cutest spinning top that exists: the blow spinning top. By blowing straight from above on the ladybug, the spinning top starts spinning. That looks so cute. Targeted blowing and good for the muscles in the lips. By regulating the hardness of the blowing, the spinning top changes its speed. You need that blowing when talking and singing. A good exercise. If you can do it, you can also place the spinning top on the back of your hand. This must be completely straight and still. With a little practice, you will succeed. The effect of blowing harder and softer is then further enhanced because you feel it on your hand.
   
   

   Emotions

   

   With the emotion dice you can talk about the situation. For everyone this 'lock down' corona and staying home as much as possible is different and everyone experiences it differently. It is good to talk about that. What emotions are there, which do you recognize in yourself, which can other people have. Listen carefully!

   Relaxation / concentration

   

   The spike ball/mini massage ball distracts and relaxes when it is in the hand. This does not have to be conscious. Sometimes there is simply still stimulus space or attention space left. With a spike ball in your hands you can fill that bit of stimuli to keep your attention on your goal. To keep you focused, as it were. Also ideal for during the schoolwork that children are now doing at home.

7. Gross motor skills :

   

   A throw cloth! Cloths fly very differently than balls. Much slower, almost in slow motion they float. This makes them easier to catch when you want to make your first attempts at juggling. Throw it in the air with one hand, follow it with your eyes and then catch it with the other hand. Pass it underneath to the first hand and then throw it in the air again. The cloth makes a circle in front of your body, as it were. But you can also swing it or turn it above your head like a helicopter.
   The cloth can also be tied to a cuddly toy as a parachute or wrapped around a cuddly toy as a blanket.
   When you put the cloth over your head and look at the world through this different color, you are stimulating your senses. What is different, how does this feel, how do I feel about it? In this way, you are also working on sensorimotor development.

   Read more:
   Exercise specialist Kirsten also wrote a blog about it: Exercise fun with throw cloths!
   
   

   E nergizer

   Do you know the Boink!? Practice fine motor skills by squeezing it and gross motor skills and reaction time by jumping after it 😍 Without much explanation, children know how this 'thing' works, trust me!

   
   

With a Mini Busy Box you can support children's development in a simple, cost-effective way, focusing on motor skills, sensory stimulation and creative exploration!

Open game possibilities

And then not to forget that this is only my interpretation, kids are very resourceful and creative when they get the chance. With the busy box, kids are actively busy!

Choose small things that might even fit in a letterbox! For you or for someone you are thinking of.

An ideal gift for your own children or for someone who is bored, sick or lonely.