DIY: Geo Board

MonkeyBoy has been doing super fantastic with shapes. I thought it was time to create a geo-board so he can create his own. 

All the items I needed to purchase were from my local dollar store and the rest of the items I had on hand in my craft stash and garage.

ITEMS:

• Piece of wood (on hand)
• Paint (on hand)
• Push Pins (2 packs of 120ct - $2.00)
• Eye hooks (on hand)
• Picture hanging wire (on hand)
• Trouser socks ($1+ depending on how many you buy)
• Ruler
• Pencil
• Sandpaper
• Scissor

I started by sanding the scrap piece of plywood I found in the garage. I then gave it a couple coats of white paint.

The board was approx. 16" x 16". I measured out a grid in 1" increments for a 14" x 14" board (196 square inches).

With a nail the same size as the push pins, I nailed a starter hole in each of the intersections (196). This is crucial. I started to just hammer the push pins straight into the wood, but this just broke a lot of push pins.

Once the starter holes were in place, I washed the penciled grid off. Then, I went to hammering 196 push pins. That's a lot of push pins. In retrospect, I may have done a grid every two inches rather than one.

In order to hang it up, I used two eye hooks and some picture-hanging wire. 

For loops, I bought 2-paks of trouser socks and cut them into 1.5" strips. I thought I could just dye the white socks to offer some color options to MonkeyBoy later. Colors were limited by selection at the store.

For smaller loops, hair ties would work well, too, as well as good ol' fashioned elastics. I just figured for my little guy's toddler-hands, we'll start with large, soft loops that have a bit of Lycra stretch, but not a lot of "smack-back" to the face.

And voila! I ended up putting the board up next to MonkeyBoy's felt board.

Hopefully he'll have some fun. 

Well, at least I'll be able to get a free 15 minutes tomorrow if nothing else.



















Yankee Doodle Dandy,
– TYG