Creating Shapes

Though I'm in the middle of a much bigger project right now, I woke this morning wanting to get straight to work on an idea that I've had in the back of my mind for quite a while now. Months ago, deep in the archives of The Wonder Years blog, I read a post on how she drove nails partway into a piece of wood for her little one to place lacing beads onto. I wrote it down in a notebook I keep for activity ideas and recently thought that I could change it up a little so that the nails would form shapes, and thus Tyler would create and see the shapes when placing the beads on.

It was quite easy to make. I didn't take tutorial photos so I hope my directions are clear if what I did isn't obvious. I first cut some wood into blocks (though with pretty uneven lines as my Dremel cutting bit apparently needs sharpening) and sanded the corners. Then using shape stencils I drew each shape and configured beads around it. Through each bead hole I penciled in a mark so I knew where I would need to drive the nail. I then drove the nails where they needed to go and took it straight to Ty to present it!

I can't say that Tyler was especially into this activity this morning, though he seemed to be having a lot of "toddler moments" and I can't really that he was into much of anything (other than trying to play dress-up with our cat, my husband reported!). Hopefully a good nap will put him in a better place this afternoon and perhaps we'll try it again.

Linking-up with The Imagination Tree! And by the way...he loves these now!  :)