DIY Land and Water Form Tablets

As I discussed before, my son really enjoys geography. We continue to talk about the continents daily, and I am working on putting together some continent boxes for him. That being said, I decided to introduce the land and water forms to him. We started with the book Water Land, which I checked out from our library (and renewed as much as I could!). I should probably just purchase the book.

I was not too sure if my son would enjoy creating the land forms on his own just yet, so when I saw a post from a Montessori 101 member about making land and water form tactile tablets, I knew I had to try it. My son really gravitates towards anything he can touch or trace, so these seemed perfect.

Here is what our DIY land and water form tablets look like:

A total of 10 tablets - from L to R, top row: isthmus, archipelago, island; middle row: strait, system of lakes, lake; bottom row: gulf, peninsula, bay, cape.

Materials:

• 10 small wooden tablets (I purchased them from Michael's for 99 cents each)
• Blue and brown felt 
• Hot glue gun and glue
• Scissors or rotary circle cutter 
• Sharpie marker

Steps:

1. Trace the tablets on the felt so you have 10 blue rectangles and 5 brown rectangles.

2. Glue the blue felt rectangles to each tablet with hot glue. To make this a bit easier on myself, I did a line on the wood, then laid the felt down on it. I made lines all down the wood, a few at a time, so that I could control where my felt went.

3. Trim any blue felt that overhangs the tablets (this step is optional, but it helped to square off any raggedy edges).

4. Free draw the land shapes on to the brown rectangles.
*Note: Each brown piece will be used for 2 blue tablets. For example, the lake and the island are opposites of each other, so I cut out the island and was left with the shape for the lake. This is where using a rotary circle cutter is extremely useful because I got cleaner lines.

5. Cut the shapes out of the brown felt and set aside.

6. Glue the brown felt pieces on top of the blue felt for each tablet. Trim any overhang from the brown felt.

7. You are finished! I went ahead and wrote the names of each on the back of each tablet for control of error and also for my own personal reference. I also made a control sheet on my computer with information on each land and water form!

This DIY cost me about $20 and only took me about 20-25 minutes to complete!

Enjoy and thank you to the member who inspired me to make these!