Make Your Own Beanbag Game Tutorial

Make your own bean bag game | Childhood 101

Some time ago I was so inspired by this post about beanbags over at SquiggleMum that I rushed out and bought fabric to make some beanbags for Immy and then promptly put it away and forgot about it.When I saw Code Name: Mama’s Beanbag Toss post on We Play, it inspired me again to get busy.

bean bag tutorial

To make:

For the back of the beanbag, I chose fabrics representing a range of colours and patterns and cut one square from each (14x14cm square). The colours and patterns will make for lots of learning play fun.

bean bag game tutorial

The fabric for the front I re-purposed from a lightweight denim dress of my own. I printed out some large numerals (1-10) in a Word document to use as pattern pieces and cut one of each numeral out of a contrasting fabric. I attached the numerals using iron on fusible webbing and then stitched around each with a zig zag stitch.

bean bag tutorial

I then double stitched one front to each back on three sides (with a 1cm seam allowance), trimming the corners to make them less bulky when they are turned right way out. Turn each bean bag right way out, carefully pushing out the corners with the point of a pair of scissors.

To fill the beanbags:

I decided to put the filling for each beanbag in a small plastic ziplock bag to provide a degree of waterproofing, just in case the beanbags need spot cleaning or get left outside and get damp. The small bags were a little to wide so I trimmed them to size and stitched the plastic closed. I filled two bags with each of the following fillings – risoni pasta, seed tapioca, green lentils, rice and dried peas, as I thought that each of the fillings would provide a slightly different texture when you rub the beanbags between your hands (taking every opportunity to provide sensory play experiences).

bean bag tutorial

To further extend the learning potential of the beanbags I (randomly) filled pairs of bags with different fill types to the same weight so that of the ten beanbags we have two each of 80gms, 95gms, 105gms, 120gms and 135gms. I thought that this would be a great resource for when Immy is older and learning about weighing things. The beanbags will be great for estimating which two are the same weight and then testing on scales. Once the ziploc bag was inside the beanbag, I turned the open, raw edge in and machine stitched the opening closed.

bean bag tutorial

And that is how I made a quick and easy set of beanbags, perfect for lots of fun and learning through play.

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7 Comments

  1. katepickle says:

    These look ace! LOVE the numbers!… Now you have my mind working, I'm thinking ink jet printer iron on fabric letters would be cool… you know, for all the free time I have right now to sew! LOL
    Thanks for the inspiration!

  2. Dionna @ Code Name: Mama says:

    These are beautiful! I love them.

  3. SquiggleMum says:

    Thanks for the link love. Your beanie bags look amazing!! Love 'em.

  4. Christie - Childhood 101 says:

    Kate – LOL

    Dionna and SM – thank you 🙂

  5. I love that you filled them with different weights so they can be used for math! brilliant!

  6. Love these! I want to make some this week!
    Thanks for the great tute 🙂
    Lusi x

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