Saturday, March 17, 2012

Texture Boards

I haven't shared a craft post for a while, so here's one - I made some texture boards!




Each board is about the size of a CD case. Richard cut all the styrofoam boards for me. I happily rummaged in my craft cupboard and went around the house collecting stuff to mount onto each board. Ryan can touch the item on each board, explore and compare textures, and learn new stuff!

From left to right in the photo above:

1st row: rubberbands, mesh, sequins, cords, scouring pad, buttons.
2nd row: cardboard, pipe cleaners (chenille stems), drinking straws, cotton tips, felt ladybird, twine.
3rd row: sandpaper, bubble wrap, macaroni, straw, metal link chain, velcro (one of each side).
4th row: foam numbers, raffia, popsicle sticks, wadding/batting, fake fur, plastic.
5th row: puffy glitter glue, large hanging sequins, cork squares, ribbon, crepe paper, suede heart.

Plus one more which somehow got left out of the photo: this is a strip of lace.



They fit nicely into a CD box. 


The photos above were taken before I made some changes. The first two from the last row (puffy glitter glue, large hanging sequins) didn't work well. Once dried, the puffy glitter glue slid off the styrofoam. The large hanging sequins started falling off. So I ditched those two boards and added these three: aluminium foil, metal brads and a piece of wood.




Ryan is happy learning about the items and how they feel to the touch. There are lots of new words for him to learn too - rough, smooth, soft, hard, crinkly, metal, fabric, plastic, stretchy, rubbery, etc. He also learns the names for the various items - aluminium foil, metal brads, twine, cork, mesh, suede, velcro, sandpaper, etc.

I did some web surfing and found some similar boards where the children place a piece of paper on top of the boards and shade a pencil over the item so that a pattern forms on the paper. That's a great idea, but we're not taking that step yet.

The nice thing about doing this project was that I didn't buy anything new. Everything I used was already in my craft cupboard or already in the house. The items are either glued on with tacky glue, sewn on, or taped on with masking tape. Some, like the velcro and the foam numbers, were already adhesive-backed. The cardboard board is a piece of cardboard cut to the same size as the styrofoam boards. The yellow mesh is wrapped around the board and taped up at the back. The plastic is actually a plastic bag - I put the board in the plastic bag and taped up the back. The metal brads are pierced through the board. All the loose ends at the back of the boards (thread, brad ends) are taped over with masking tape.

Ok, that's all. Happy weekend!

1 comments:

Tokana said...

Hi,
I am doing a child care course at TAFE, and was wanting to do a sensory (texture) board, so I was looking for ideas. I was going to make one big one with many textures, but you've given me such a great idea, and it's so neat!
Thank you so very much.
I love how many different textures you have there!
Sand is a great texture, as well.

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