Oh Oh! this brings back major fun memories of when mine were little. I made a big quilt that looked like a checkerboard with red and black bean bags for the checkers. It was huge fun teaching them how to play checkers that way:)

I am bookmarking this. You all have such great ideas.

Mine are a little older but one of the things we did together is: On my embroidery machine they pushed the buttons and picked out a picture, one picked a duck and one picked a bear, then we got the thread together and they loved watching the machine work. Then I made it into a pillow and they stuffed it. They had such a great time doing that part. They were so proud of the pillows they made.

Build a bear is making a fortune off of that exact same thing.

Thanks, more great ideas!

My grands are ages 1 to 5. I'm also going to be making some of them back packs (I think).

I love the checker and bean bag idea too.

There are small pillows available - 12 x 16 - how about getting them a couple of "little" pillows and making pillowcases for them?

The "housewife" or "breakfast" style pillowcase is very neat looking. And quick to make after figuring out how to do it.