What's Inside
Here’s what’s inside The Big Fun Box and why. Each item is included because it works well with one or more other items to multiply its usefulness and fun—Big Fun! Nothing is included by accident.
Stress toy: Latex free. Squeezed to help manage stress and fear. Sometimes there’s not a hand to hold during injections, suture removal, suctioning and the like. This stress toy can give the patient something to squeeze. It can also be used simply as a toy and comes in different shapes: fish, stars, cars, penguins…
Folding ruler: A high-quality, colorful plastic ruler. 1 square = 1 inch. It can be folded so that the odd numbers show, or so that only the even numbers show. It is almost impossible to hold this ruler without playing with it, so it can have a calming effect—like worry beads. Useful, too, with the Imagination Pad and colored pencils included.
Colored pencils: Chosen instead of markers because they won’t dry out, bleed on linens, pajamas, etc. They last longer, too. 12 colors.
Pencil sharpener: Kid-friendly and a necessity!
Imagination Pad: 50 sheets of empty canvas. It’d be easy to give the patient 50 pictures to color instead, but using one’s imagination is a lot of what The Big Fun Box is all about. Patients can use the pages for notes, pictures, origami, etc. It’s for wherever they want their imaginations to take them.
HeadGames: This booklet is the heart of The Big Fun Box. It’s really where it all started. These are the simple games we made up to try to keep from going out of our minds. We found they helped us relax and keep our minds on positive thoughts instead of feeding our fears. As the patient gets older, the games can be made more complicated, if desired, straight from the patients’ imaginations. From “Things Related to… (Categories)” to the “Magic Trick,” to make us sleepy, HeadGames is full of our homemade fun. It also includes rules for card games you can improvise, such as “Old Maid,” and multiple ways to use other items in The Big Fun Box.
Find ’Em: Word search puzzles with solutions. These are everyday topics with a bit of a nudge toward learning something new. For instance, in breeds of dogs, there’s an Irish Setter, a Beagle and a Border Collie, but there’s also an Affenpinscher and an Otter Hound—who knew?! Refer to the playing cards for more breeds—cats, too!
Jigsaw puzzles: There is more to putting a puzzle together than just turning over the pieces and assembling the picture. In HeadGames we suggest other ways to make them even more fun and interesting, such as putting them together to the beat of music, or since currently, there are two 50-piece puzzles in each Big Fun Box, have a race with a visitor to finish first!
A nice way to say “Thank You” notes: Now we’re taking the patient from being inwardly focused to starting to notice the nice things people do for him/her. Thank you notes are fading from our culture, yet they still mean so much. These are simple notes that can be decorated with the colored pencils: and the outline for the message is provided, in order to make it easier for the child to succeed in making someone’s day. We’re hoping the patients will enjoy doing something nice for someone else that they’ll make even more from their Imagination Pads. Envelopes are included, to make them even more special. Covering the walls in nurses’ stations or in dietary, maintenance areas, etc., with a collection of Thank You Notes can be a morale boost for hospital staff, too, and help spread the “Big Fun” spirit throughout each hospital.
Plastic stencils: More fuel to get the imagination going. Two are included. Durable and easy to use. Flip them over and make all designs in reverse!
Playing cards: Patients can play whatever games they know with cards and refer to HeadGames for some of our ideas. Learn about dog or cat breeds, too, since that’s the design of the cards.
Feedback postcard: We want feedback from the patients to help us continually provide them with fun! The more they tell us, the better The Big Fun Box can be. This is a self-addressed, stamped postcard to make it as easy as possible for the patients to give us their feedback and results, which we also share with our FunDonors.
Our goal is to donate thousands of Big Fun Boxes, each year, to children who are experiencing frequent and extended stays—for any illness or injury—in pediatric hospitals across the country.
We are a 501(c)(3) Non-Profit Organization
