My partner and I love using anything wooden when it comes to activities for the kiddo's in our classroom. Why? I'll tell you why! Not only does it look visually beautiful, but it is better durability wise and will last you a lot longer when it comes to your student's and your days spent in Kindergarten. Unfortunately, you just can't find some of these amazing creative things in stores! So... the solution for all of us is.... to make our own!
I've done several DIY projects for our classroom. Some wooden, some not and I can tell you right now, the wooden ones have lasted A LOT longer. In this post, I wan't to share with you my most recent DIY wooden project that I put together in no time!
These are my new wooden addition sentences. Super cute, easy to store and they can be used for SO many different addition activities/centres. Here is how I made them!
I first ventured off into a little store called Home Depot. I love this store! It's my go to whenever I need to purchase wood. There is always someone around to help me and they are lovely and patient. I only needed TWO pieces of wood for this project. They were $1.49 each and I had an employee cut them in half for me, giving me four pieces total. I chose to find pieces that had a few knots and holes in them. I thought they would look a lot more interesting and rustic.
I then sanded the ends and edges of each piece of wood with a sanding block. I didn't have to purchase one of these because I had a few lying around. Once you have one, you'll have it for awhile! You can easily purchase sand paper at the dollar store but they have the sanding blocks at Home Depot for around $4.
After my wood was prepped, I was ready to stain! Again, I didn't have to buy any because I had some lying around from previous projects but you can buy them in various colours at Home Depot for $9. I had two cans of stain but for this project I only used the large water based stain. I stained these about five times total. I stained the wood and then after two minutes, I wiped them down with a paper towel. I did this until I got the desired colour.
I let my pieces of wood dry over night before I completed my addition sentences. This was the final colour.
For the plus and equal signs, I used popsicle sticks. I cut off each end of the popsicle sticks and cut them to fit. I painted them black with acrylic paint from the dollar store and then hot glued them onto the wood pieces.
And there you have it! Fairly straight forward and easy to do. It may seem like a lot of work but I promise you it will be worth it in the long run! Think of super cute activities!
Also, stay tuned because I'll be posting one of our cute future Easter centres with these! Here's a sneak peak.
As always - have fun, be creative and enjoy!
Paula
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