Opening cabinets, stealing your phone, playing with keys, pressing buttons on remote controls – this is all typical toddler behavior that is super important for their development.
There’s just one problem – it often leads to lost or broken items that are a nightmare to replace or a lot of mess that you end up cleaning.
However, it’s great to see your kid practicing their fine motor skills and being curious about the world around them.
So, how can you allow them to continue to be their creative, developing self without turning your home into a mess?
Well, getting your toddler a busy board is a great solution to this problem. Busy boards are giant boards that have a lot of different gadgets for your toddler to play with.
They often feature a range of colors, textures and objects that your toddler can touch and feel, as well as move and play with to help learn how they work.
All of these objects are fastened to the board so your toddler cannot lose them, but there are lots of different ideas you can use to make your own busy board for your toddler.
So, let’s dive into some best busy board ideas for your toddler!
This adorable busy board has a background based on a starry night skyline. This makes it not only super cute, but gorgeous to leave in any room of the house.
Each of the toys and gadgets are incorporated into the scene perfectly and all come together to make the busy board feel more like an interactive picture than just a lot of gadgets fastened to a big plank of wood.
For example, a cloud in the sky includes textured materials like felt and cotton, the skyline of a city in the background also acts as a path to move a set of keys through, the stars and moon are wooden cutouts that can be removed and put back.
Overall, this busy board is a stunning idea that is gender-neutral and so cute just to look at, never mind to play with!
This busy board is all about style and aesthetics as it features a stunning pastel color scheme that can be customized to suit your child’s nursery.
It goes to show that busy boards can be cute and beautiful even if they feature more rustic and weird objects like chains, locks, trolley wheels and zips.
These metallic objects are balanced with plenty of wooden features to help soften the look and some are shaped into stars and clouds to capture your child’s wonder and attention.
There are plenty of gadgets and accessories to keep your toddler busy and also help them tune their motor skills.
So, if you want your toddler’s busy board to look cute while featuring lots of accessories, then this is definitely the board to take inspiration from.
The designer of this busy board decided to style it after a llama with a cute little face, four legs, a tail, and a mop of fluffy wool at the top that also doubles as a great sensory accessory for your toddler to touch and feel.
There are also plenty of fun gadgets for them to play with – strings tied like shoelaces, zips, a set of keys, a light, gears, and even an air horn for sound!
It just goes to show that not all busy boards need to be the same shape so get creative with the overall outline of your toddler’s busy board!
If your kid loves trucks and other kinds of vehicles, then why not incorporate that fascination into their busy board?
The designer of this busy board has clearly taken on some of the kid’s interest, by shaping and combining different gadgets and accessories into the style of different vehicles.
For example, the large wheels of a tractor are large gears that your toddler can turn, and the doors of a car can be locked or unlocked.
You can even open the doors to reveal fun little images inside, perhaps photographs of your toddler and their family?
This can double your busy board as a fun hide-and-seek exercise that is sure to get a couple of giggles from your toddler.
This busy board has also designed its background to resemble a fun, happy landscape with lots of busy pictures that are sure to keep your toddler interested.
Some have even incorporated the scenery into the toys and accessories.
For example, the felt used for the rain cloud doubles as a texture toy for your toddler, and the beads that dangle from it resembles raindrops.
There is also an airplane that your child can slide around in spirals and pretend that it is flying through the air.
With secret doors and bells for auditory stimulation, there’s a lot going on with this busy board that is sure to entertain your toddler for hours.
The bright colors and fun scenery all combine to make this busy board as visually pleasing to you as it is fun to your toddler.
Who said that your toddler’s busy board had to be a single flat panel?
Why not be creative with your toddler’s busy board by turning it into a busy cube? This way, you can divide the busy board into four distinct sides, plus include something on the top like a larger toy or use it as an activity table.
So, not only will this busy cube keep your toddler – well, busy – but it can also function as a child-sized surface for them to either sit on or use to draw and play. It’s fun and versatile, and such a creative idea!
While a lot of busy boards like to use cute little accessories and gadgets, like beads on a string or bits of fabric cut into different shapes, this busy board has tackled the root reason behind the busy board’s creation – to stop your toddler from playing with important objects around your home!
Kids love to play with things they should but messing with household items can result in tiny fingers getting caught in doors or losing your keys when you need them the most.
This busy board takes everyday objects and attaches them to the busy board so your kid can play with their own lights and locks without having to worry about hurting themselves.
Plus, it all still looks very cute and pleasing even though the designer of this busy board has used real objects.
This idea for a toddler busy board can help turn a whole section of your child’s bedroom or nursery into a fun little area designed to look like a building site.
The yellow and black stripes are reminiscent of caution tape and help give it a fun but sophisticated look that your toddler will not grow out of.
This industrial look is also a great way to seamlessly blend all of these metallic locks, handles, wheels, and springs together and turn them from everyday DIY objects into fun toys for your toddler to play with.
We have already seen that your toddler’s busy board does not need to be a huge flat panel, and this is another great example of how creative you can be with your toddler’s busy board.
The designer of this busy board has timed it into a busy corner that can fit into the angles of your toddler’s room, or be used to help section off a small play area in your living room.
It’s rustic and homemade with lots of tiny fixings against a plain wooden body, which means that it will suit any kind of decor.
There are also additional fixtures on the sides, such as a ribbed edge and a stick so your toddler can make noise and feel the texture of the edge.
As for the back of the busy board, you can either leave it plain or attach lots of pictures and stickers to decorate it, customizing it to suit your toddler’s interests and personality.
If letting your child play with lots of fixings and gadgets is not your style, then perhaps you can take inspiration from this busy board and make one designed around textures and materials instead.
Toddlers are still very young and their desire to touch something new is their way of exploring with their senses, so a stimulating sensory texture board just like this one is a great idea.
This busy board features lots of different squares and circles that each contain a different texture for your toddler to touch and experience.
Some examples include cotton, sponge, woven rope, pebbles, rattan balls, marble, optical fibers, carpet, cloth, and so much more!
This way, your kids can safely touch these samples of lots of different textures to continue their sensory exploration as they grow!
Must toddler busy boards are always designed to either be cute or modern, but if you want something more rustic and old-fashioned, then you can take inspiration from this busy board right here!
It looks far more natural which means that your toddlers are far more likely to see these objects as the same ones they see all around their home.
There is a door knocker, a padlock, a wheel, a door knob, a light switch, and so much more!
It all looks very natural and realistic, meaning that it can blend in seamlessly with more traditional decor and it’s easier for your toddler to draw parallels between the items on their busy board and the items they are not allowed to touch around their home.
This busy board is a great idea as it is designed to resemble a driving dashboard!
Instead of just including lots of gadgets and toys all fastened to the same board with no cohesion, the designer of this busy board decided to style them all to resemble a driving dashboard instead.
This means that there is a driving wheel for your toddler to turn, their own gear stick they can move around, a mile meter they can adjust, a reflective mirror, a radio with lots of buttons to press, and more!
This design idea will help you create a busy board that has a clear theme and thus make it look a lot more neat and fun for your toddler.
This homemade busy board is a lot smaller than some, but its homemade feel and rustic design just goes to show that you can transform metallic locks and buckles into a very appealing toy for your child.
Its neutral palette means that it can be carried from room to room and not feel out of place, plus it’s super cute and simplistic.
And finally, we have this giant busy board that contains so many different toys, gadgets and fixings that it is sure to keep your toddler occupied for hours.
It just goes to show there is no limit to how large you can make your toddler’s busy board and the larger you go, the more you can add.
The designer of this busy board has not held back and has included all the different things that your toddler is sure to love to fiddle with.
There is a pipe with an attached ball, shoestrings, zips, buckles, a fidget spinner, locks, sliding puzzles, chains, keys, an xylophone, an air horn, and so much more!
It covers so many of your toddler’s senses and is also styled with such a cute design and color palette so that it will easily fit into your child’s room or play area.
Conclusion
And those were our 15 favorite design ideas for toddler busy boards!
As you can see, there are lots of different ways you can style and design your toddler’s busy board.
You can make them small or large, flat or three-dimensional, cute or modern, or even just include sensory materials instead of the usual gadgets and toys!
Whichever way you choose, you are sure to create a super interesting busy board for your toddler that will capture their attention for hours and hours.
Hi, my name is Helena Waters and I was a teacher for 40 years before retiring last year.
During my time as a teacher I dedicated the majority of it to making classrooms as fun as possible, with educational parties, fun activities, and low cost entertainment that made the children excited about learning.
I taught children of all ages, from preschoolers to high school students. Now, with the pandemic having uprooted everything that children once knew about school and learning, I think that the need for my ideas is bigger than ever.
That is why I created School Sparks, a place in which I can write down and share all of my ideas on how to get students excited about going to school again. I hope that you’ll find some useful within a school setting, even at home too!
