3 Ways to Use a Cake Pan (No Baking Required!)

One square cake pan + assorted magnets = easy, engaging activities that are a cinch to prepare!

As I am always on the prowl for things to keep L's little hands busy and her little brain engaged, I was thrilled beyond measure to find yet another collection of activities to add to my busy bag stash. (Click here to see some other busy bag ideas!)  I don't know if this is a general toddler trait or specific to my own little tot, but our house runneth over with magnets of every shape, size, and assortment imaginable and L finds them all fascinating.  In my quest to add to our list of boredom busters and to declutter at least one corner of my house, I had a momentary flash of brilliance and decided to pair said magnets with a square cake pan: instant, travel-sized magnet play!

L is all about the sea critters these days, and she got quite a kick out of the fact that they were all swimming around in this tiny metallic sea.

Sprinkle in a little letter learning with alphabet magnets.  We have multiple sets of letter magnets in our house, so I didn't feel too bad about sacrificing one set for the boredom buster cause.

Picture cards offer amazing opportunities for language.  These were made of photos I chopped out of magazines and covered in contact paper, with a magnet stuck to the back.  Also notice that for this magnet set, we flipped the cake pan around and used the underside as opposed to the inside of the pan.

The nice thing about the small cake pan is that it isn't overwhelmingly huge so it's perfect for tiny hands and it fits nicely into a shoulder bag or backpack.  I put the magnets into sandwich bags for storage in between uses, or at least I will once I wrestle the whole thing away from L!

How do you keep your kids engaged on the go?