Madly Making Materials - Sandpaper Numerals

Countdown to home-school grand opening: T minus 3 days and counting... AAAAAHHH. So much to do but it's been a creative bonanza for me! Something I had been lacking for a few months except for home-made Christmas presents. In the last post I made the following list of materials that were on the drawing board:

1. Teen Board

2. Ten Board

3. 2 sets of Lg. number cards

4. 3 sets of Sm. number cards

5. Lower case sandpaper letters (print)

6. Sandpaper Numbers

7. Number cards for number rods

8. Red rods

For the sake of including my home-made material forays in What Did We Do All Day's Ultimate Montessori Home Made Materials Collaboration I'm posting each material I've crafted separately. Today is the saga of Sandpaper Numerals!

Thanks Grandpa T for cutting out all of this lovely 1/8" Birch Ply!

And then the sanding began... and it went on... and on... and on... until we had beautiful smooth rounded edges and corners on every piece! Well worth the work.

Now for the paint. Watch out for that wind blowing!

My "what I thought to be a brilliant idea"

of making stencils out of good ol' macTac so that I could paint glue on and then pour sand on the glue. I wanted the letters to be as authentic Montessori as possible and durable. After cutting out all of the stencils and applying I then was educated on the impossibility of finding fine sand where we live! Play sand--- NO, too gritty. Gravel Pit sand--- NO, it's covered up by 5 feet of snow here! Craft sand?--- NO, it doesn't exist around here. Oh well, sandpaper it had to be...

They must be looking OK as little fingers are itching to touch them!