 |
| Made of PVC pipe and wooden dowels, this portable box can be hung on the wall or set on the floor. |
My friend has twin toddlers, a boy and a girl aged 16 months, who LOVE this box Grandpa built! I'm not sure what to call it!? Please send me YOUR ideas for a name :)
She saw a larger version of this box at a children's museum, and luckily her dad is handy with the saw. She spent all of $17 at a home improvement store to buy 10 feet of PVC pipe (1 1/4 inches diameter) and 3 wooden dowels (1 inch diameter, 3 feet each).
First her dad cut the PVC into 2" pieces and glued them to each other and to a foam core backing. Then he cut the wooden dowels into 2 1/4 inch pieces. (His circular saw was broken, so he just used a regular old hand saw.)
Next my friend sanded all of the PVC edges and dowel pieces. Her dad finished off the box by giving it sides, a rope handle, and taping it all together with duct tape. Viola!
You'd be surprised how captivating it can be for a toddler to empty and fill this box! See a similar idea that uses ping pong balls in this earlier post.
 |
| We agreed that the dowels look like cork and that corks would make a fine substitute for the wood. |
 |
| If you were feeling particularly feisty, I suppose you could polyurethane these puppies. |
I love this work, but PVC is extremely toxic. I wouldn't use it.
ReplyDeleteCould you use paper towel holder/toilet roll holder instead?
ReplyDeleteI love this idea and plan to duplicate it. Because I have a thrower or two in my room (kids on the Autism Spectrum), maybe I'll use foam hair rollers that fit into the tissue rolls.
DeleteBTW, I am only going under Anonymous because I haven't yet figured out how to sign up the other ways.
except this should be 10 rows by 10 columns. Montessori does math base 10 to ready a child for algebra...
ReplyDeleteIt's a good idea. Toddlers do like games that involve making patterns or removing and adding things to spaces or objects. I've seen a similar idea used with a game for toddlers that involved a clear plastic bottle and lots of colorful paper that they could use to fill the bottle.
ReplyDeleteThat's a neat idea--thanks!
ReplyDeleteThat's such a cool idea
ReplyDeleteAffordable too
That's a nice way to exercise their brains.
ReplyDelete