August 11, 2013 - My Latest DIY (fail or not?)

Grace is slowly learning how to read these days (I am using this text, FYI) and I thought it would be fun to make a "velcro word wall" in her room, so that she can play with the words she knows how to read, make sentences, sort for rhyming, etc.  Sort of like our counting wall,  I also thought that making this wall would satisfy my "back to school" teacher urges.  Kristoffer said something like, "Can't she just use a whiteboard and magnets?" Which is a great idea! But a big whiteboard costs about $100 here.  And the little ones we have aren't THAT much fun.  Plus I thought that velcro would be more interesting to her because of the fun noise it makes.

So here's what I did:

1.  I printed words (the few she can already read, as well as maybe the next 75 that she'll learn) on colored cardstock and had them laminated. (yes, there is a color code but that is only for the benefit of  my neurotic self, and would totally frighten you away if I explain it here I am sure).

2. I attached velcro strips to the back of them using double sided tape. Later I found out that the tape wasn't strong enough so in round two the velcro strips were glued to the laminated words.

 3. I wiped off an empty patch of wall in Grace's room...next to her bookshelf.

 4. I mounted the other half of the velcro onto the wall using a stronger double sided tape (the verdict is still out on how much wear and tear - literally! - this tape can take before I need to find a stronger adhesive.

5.  Then I gave Grace a box of laminated words that she knows how to sound out and revealed the wall to her.  Her initial reaction was along the lines of "wow! my words!"

6.  The final product:

The reason I don't know if this is a DIY success or failure is because:

A.  Since her first time playing with the wall she has had no interest whatsoever.  I suppose a small part of me did think (hope?) that she would be instantly writing sentences.

and

B.  It just doesn't look that cool.  The counting wall is way cooler, but I didn't want her words to be stationary - I want her to be able to use them at some stage.  Maybe it would have looked cooler if I had put the strips on the bright green wall in her room instead of the white wall.  I don't know.

Anyway, time will tell if the velcro word wall lasts or not.  Maybe as her reading skills progress so will her velcro interest!

LMW

October 3, 2012 - DIY Counting Wall

I don't know if it is because I have been in a lot of classrooms lately, or if it is because I have needed a small project to distract from my homesickness, or if it just because my kids love to count!  But I decided to make a "Counting Wall" at our house (*note that I am NOT normally a DIY-er at all but really, would there be any other kind of counting wall besides a "DIY"?) and I thought I'd share how it turned out.  Grace has been able to count well in English and Danish for ages, but Noah is learning (and obviously he is just learning to talk as well) and Rose is also trying to teach both of them a lot more Kiswahili.  So I wanted the Counting Wall to go from one to ten in all three languages, plus include a picture (doggies!) and the actual numbers.  

I used the wall in our upstairs hallway.  I was thinking of having the numbers go up the stairs, but I was afraid that would turn into playing on the stairs which is really not to be encouraged in this house (Noah is such a risk-taker/dare-devil!).  It was a big blank wall that now has a little color and a little character to it. 

This is how it turned out:

(yes, the wall is curved...almost every room in our house has one "curved corner"...but that kind of adds to the look, right?)

(to the left of the wall is Noah's room; across from the wall is Grace's room - I am standing in her room to take this picture)

(UP CLOSE)

It was easy to do:  I typed up the text, printed it out along with all the doggy pictures, cut out the white paper pieces, glued them onto normal size colorful cardstock, took the pages to a place to be laminated (really miss my old lamintor!), cut the bigger cards out and hung them up with mounting tape last night while the kids were sleeping.  I could have done it more perfectly by measuring and/or using a paper cutter.  But alas, I was pretty much looking for speedy gratification on this one.  

They were VERY excited when they woke up this morning.  Grace was going through them by row and then by column.  Noah was just pointing to them at random and squealing...especially liking the doggies.  In hindsight I should have put the doggies in a lower row (they are eye level for Grace but a little too high for Noah).

But I'm happy with how it turned out, and even though I think Kristoffer thought I was a little nutsy at first he seemed to like the end result.

LMW