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!

DIY Montessori Sound Cylinders

Sound cylinders are used in Montessori education as a sensorial material at the primary (ages 3-6) level. They help the child refine their auditory senses. The cylinders look the same except for the red and blue tops, so they isolate the sense of hearing. The child will initially match the sounds of the cylinders by shaking them and finding the two that have the same sound. There are also extension activities with the sound cylinders.

Sound cylinders are an easy DIY if you are homeschooling your child or want to do sensorial work. I could not find cylinders, but I did find small boxes at Michael's that were 99 cents each. This project took me less than 10 minutes (most of the time I was searching for items to place in the boxes and I burned my finger on the hot glue once, so you can easily do it under 10 minutes)! It is cheap, quick (less than $10), looks great, and all of the items in the boxes are things I found around my house.

For this project, you need the following:

• 8+ (even number) similar small boxes, cylinders, containers
• Hot glue and hot glue gun
• Markers, paint (I did red and blue acrylic paint), 2 small paintbrushes
• Non-perishable items from your house

 Next, I marked the bottom of the boxes with a small dot - one color for 2 boxes. This helps to remind me which ones match as well as control for the child to see if they are correct.

After that, I went to my pantry to see what I could find to place in the boxes. I wanted sounds of varying grades - from soft to loud. I made sure that none of them sounded the same. I chose sugar, uncooked rice, uncooked pasta (rotini), and coins. Don't fill the containers too much because you want the items to move around and make noise.

Then I glued the tops back on to the boxes. I put a small dab of hot glue on the very top of each side of the box and put the top back on. The tops are pretty tight fitting, so it worked really well. My only mishap is that, since the boxes are a heavy paper material, the sugar was coming out of one of them when I shook it. I just put some hot glue all around the edge of the top to keep the sugar inside. I did not do this for all the other boxes because it was not necessary.

Ready to be painted!

The final step was to paint the tops. This is done so the child can place the boxes back in their groups after finishing the activities. One red box matches one blue box. It makes presentation easier (so I don't have to look at the bottom of the boxes) as well as an aid to put the material back on the shelf as it was.

Ready for the shelf!

I hope my son will enjoy these. I will present them to him tomorrow morning! :-)