Aliens Love Underpants by Claire Freedman is one of those books that gets read so many times the cover starts to wear. It is also, secretly, a colors book: the aliens want underpants in every shade, and a small child picks up red, green, orange, and the rest without realizing they are learning anything. This busy bag turns the story into a felt activity a child can play with on their own, build their own alien, hang felt underpants on a little clothesline, and pack the whole thing back into a case to take on the go. Ages 2 to 5.
The idea
The busy bag has two felt boards. One is a build-your-own-alien board, with a felt backdrop and a set of mix-and-match alien body parts. The other has a little felt clothesline for hanging up the different underpants from the story. Both fold into a small case along with the book, so the whole thing travels.
A space-themed case is a fun touch if you happen to spot one, but any small zip case, pencil box, or document wallet does the job of holding the felt pieces and the book together.
What you need
- Felt in a range of colors. Greens and oranges for the aliens, plus bright colors for the underpants.
- A piece of recycled cardboard for each board, plus a sheet of felt to cover each one (blue makes a good sky backdrop).
- Scissors.
- Glue for sticking the felt to the cardboard, and a needle and thread if you want to stitch the detail on (stitching holds up better than glue on pieces a child handles a lot).
- A short length of string or ribbon and a few small clothespins for the underpants clothesline.
- A small case or box to hold it all, plus the book.
Making the build-an-alien board
Cut a piece of cardboard to a comfortable size and cover one face with blue felt, glued down. This is the backdrop. Then cut alien parts from the green and orange felt: a couple of body shapes, a few different eyes, arms, antennae, mouths. Make them interchangeable so a child can mix parts between a green alien and an orange one. Felt sticks lightly to felt, so the pieces hold on the backdrop and peel off cleanly to rearrange.
Making the underpants clothesline board
Make a second board the same way, then glue a length of string across it as a clothesline and attach a few small clothespins. Cut out felt underpants in the colors and patterns from the story: red ones, green ones, orange ones, and a spotted pair. A child clips the underpants onto the line, matching the colors as they go, which is the sneaky color-naming part of the activity.
How a child plays with it
The first thing that happens is recognition. A small child spots that these are the aliens from the book and lights up. From there it is open-ended: build an alien, take it apart, build a different one, hang the underpants, take them down, match the clothespins to the colors. There is no single right way to do it, which is exactly why it holds attention.
The learning packed into it is broad for such a simple set. A child practices colors, names body parts as they build the alien, orders and matches the underpants, and stretches descriptive language, all while extending a story they already love. The felt and the clothespins are quiet fine motor work on top.
Why it travels well
The best part is that it all packs away. The two boards, the loose felt pieces, and the book itself fit into the small case, so it becomes a self-contained activity for a cafe, a car, or a waiting room. If you have the sequel Aliens in Underpants Save the World, that fits in the case too, and the same felt pieces work for both.
For another book-themed craft that turns into a play piece, our make your own Supertato builds a character from a potato and a few craft scraps. And for a quieter sit-down option in the same age band, our free animal coloring pages give a child something to color when the felt pieces go back in the case.