Bean bags to while away the time

Another lockdown / stash busting project:  - to make bean bags. I first picked up the idea from Peekaboo, whose newsletter I receive regularly. Her article on bean bags is here. While some of her suggested games were not so useful for my daughter in a first floor flat with no outdoor space, the method for making the bags was easy. We could be inventive about games for ourselves. The great advantage of bean bags in a flat, with thin walls and floors, is that they can be thrown without making too much noise on the floor, or risking breaking windows!

(However, to be even-handed, I also made a set for the other family who do have a garden.)

Here's all about making bean bags, and some games for indoors and out.

Making the bean bags

For each family, I made two sets of 5 (or 5 sets of 2!). As Peekaboo suggests, I used 6" squares. There were so many scraps in the scrap box, it wasn't difficult to find pieces enough to make  sets of two identical fronts:

Then I needed some larger pieces to make the backs. So there was a cream set (with one of each of the five fronts) and a red set (also with one of each of the fronts). 

So you could have 2 girls each playing with a set of five - or if the whole family of 4 played, each could have one set of the pairs, with a set spare.

Having cut the sets out, I batched produced them. The method is to sew each one right sides together, leaving a small gap for turning. Then you clip the corners (not cutting the sewn threads!). 

I find it handy to press the open seam back with an iron, while still the wrong way out - it makes it easier to get the two sides of the open seam exactly together.  Here's a complete  set sewn ready to turn out. This set had navy with tiny white spots on half the backs, and the red butterfly fabric on the other half.

However, before sewing them up, you need to fill them. Peekaboo suggested 4 oz (110 grams or so) of dried beans. Well, at the start of this crisis, you couldn't get dried beans for love nor money! Or dried anything. Usually, I would have some in stock, but not this time. So the first set were filled with a mixture of some out-of-date dried lentils, some rounded garden grit (not ideal, but needs must) and whatever else I could cobble together. I figured the weight was more important than volume. For 10 bags, I needed over a kilo of stuff. One filled, I used my machine to edge stitch the gaps closed - using a small stitch so the contents couldn't escape. In fact, as you can see, I top stitched all this set to make sure of that. The recipients only live a mile and  half from my house, so I walked round with them.

Eventually, I found a 900 gram bag of dried black beans of doubtful provenance and age at a little corner shop, ready to start filling the second set. Here are all the bags, ready to fill.

But wait - here's a problem. By this time, there was no question of our being able to visit that family, over 40 minutes' drive away - the bags were going to have to be posted. A one kilo parcel was going to be a lot more expensive to post and would probably take longer. A quick video call established that, yes, that daughter did think she could fill the bags herself and stitch them up by hand. So they went in the post in an ordinary envelope, open and unfilled. I got a lovely letter thanking me for the been bags from my 5 and 6 year-old grandchildren, telling me Mummy had already sewn 8 of them up.

As someone pointed out, if you got desperate in these difficult times, you could cook the beans! But I wouldn't suggest the daughter who received the 'gravel and old lentils' bags to open them for sustenance, nor the one who filled them with polystyrene packaging balls.

Our ideas for playing with bean bags

Some of these don’t need much supervision once set up, others need more participation from an adult. Some can be points scoring, to add to the entertainment (and possibly the home schooling?).

1. How far can you throw? Make the floor with chalk, or you can Sellotape down pieces of ribbon at different distances, each space with a different score. This can work in a flat.

Or draw a bullseye. Or put something soft on top of a surface and try and knock it off by throwing a bag. (But mind the vases and the hot cup of coffee!)

2. Play catch You can use one bean bag between two or more people, or more than one bag (so you exchange bags).

3. Aim at specific things – e.g. spell your name by hitting letters marked on floor, or aim for shapes, or use the different colours of bags in turn.

4. Obstacle course – cycle / run round beanbags strategically placed. (This idea came from the family with a garden!)

5. Throw into a bucket or basket from a distance – how many can you get in? Or have more than one bucket, at further distances.

6. Balance as many bean bags on your head as possible and walk a straight line.

7. Counting games e.g. how many have I got?

8. Weight lifting and weight assisted exercises. Take at least one bag in each hand, arms by your side, and raise arms to horizontal. Or bring the bags to the front of your chest, arms bent, and straighten arms to the side. Twist side to side holding bags. Lay on your back with knees in the air and balance weights on top of knees. Try and toe tap without dropping bags. Straighten legs with feet in the air and balance bags. Do a ‘cat’ with bags on your back and try and walk on hands and knees. (Or do the Joe Wicks Covid-19 workout with bean bags in each hand.)

9. Juggling

And some games:

10. Hot potato – like pass the parcel, but with a bean bag – if you are holding it when the music stops you are out.

11. Hide the bags and find them. The problem with this is that the three-year-old is really good at hiding things - and then forgetting where she's put them - so this can be a longer than anticipated game!

12. Doggy Doggy where’s your bone? The person who is the dog sits in a chair with their back to the others and eyes closed. The bone (a bean bag) is put under the chair. Someone sneaks up and steals the bone and hides it in their clothes, hands or under them. Then everyone sings: “Doggy, Doggy, where's your bone? Somebody's stole it from your home. Guess who, it might be you.” The dog has two or three chances to guess. Sometimes it gets left under his or her chair. If the dog guesses right then he gets to do it again. If he guesses wrong than the person who took the bone gets a turn as the dog. This game may be more suitable once lockdown ends!