Not long ago my girls were invited to a meet and greet of the stars of Disney on Ice presents Treasure Trove – and boy did they have a ball. So it’s not surprising that we were all looking forward to seeing the actual show, and to celebrate the occasion we decided on having a meal beforehand in a nearby restaurant and creating some fun crafty busy bags for the kids to work on while their food was being cooked. They really loved these bags!
*disclosure: We were provided with complimentary tickets to the show in exchange for writing this post, but all ideas, thoughts and opinions are my own.
The bigger my kids get the more capable they are of being able to sit still in a cafe or restaurant, but they are still quite young and attention spans are on the short side, and food at busy cafes and restaurants sometimes takes a while to arrive. When you’re just a little kid ‘a while’ can seem like an eternity and every parent has probably had the experience of not enjoying their cafe stop because they are too busy trying to get the kids to stop throwing sugar sachets across the room and keep their voices down.
Ordinarily my husband and I know which places are reasonably kid friendly and usually pick the ones that have a play area, but sometimes we like a change and in this case were not eating local, so I decided to pack some little busy bags for the girls. They were so excited to have them that it was all I could do to stop them from grabbing them and doing the activities inside before we left. What did I put in them, you ask?
Since we were going out to see Disney on Ice presents Treasure Trove I decided to stick with the theme. I suck some pictures from their Disney colouring books on the front for them to colour in, and also put some paper cutout dolls inside so that they could make some princess stick puppets. Each bag contained:
• One row of store-bought paper cutout dolls
• Some long craft sticks
• Squares of coloured tissue paper
• Foil cupcake cases
• Stickers
• A small bundle of crayons
• Scissors
• Glue stick
• Washi tape
All of these items I just pulled from the craft cupboard at home, you could vary the contents of the bag to suit what you have on hand.
The girls made a bit of a mess but it was all easily put back into the bag when our food arrived, and it kept them busy and a lot less wriggly during the wait. Then it was time for the show…
Pictures above courtesy of Disney
We absolutely LOVED the show, it definitely lived up to our expectations. We were treated to an ice skating spectacular of lots of the girls’ favourite Disney films, all fast moving and exciting to watch. After the meet and greet they attended before the show, where the girls got to try out ice skating for themselves, they had an appreciation of just how tricky it can be. The skaters manage to pull off some Olypics-worthy moves while dressed in cartoon costumes, so I was pretty impressed myself.
The fact that the performance can hold a theatre full of wriggly little kids enthralled for so long is worth a mention too. In miss R’s words, “This is the most incredible show on ice ever”.
For loads more busy bag ideas visit my busy bags board on Pinterest.
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