How to make (and play with) your own colourful mini magnetic wooden blocks!
Who doesn't love to play with blocks? I have strong memories as a child of building towers out of the cuisenaire rod sets in my mum's classroom waiting for her to finish after school. I've also confessed my love for magnets before too when I wrote about some task cards I'd made. You can click here to read that post, it remains one of my most read.
Now I'm creating memories for my own children by making some colourful mini magnetic blocks for play!
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A couple of months ago on Fun at Home with Kids I saw a post about colouring your own wooden blocks. They looked so lovely with all their different shades and hues but my own kids are not big on their block play unless it's part of a world that they are creating (think fences for the animals, towers for the princess) so as much as I loved Asia's idea, making a set for my kids would seem a waste but then I found these small raw wooden unit-sized blocks. Now these I could do something with!
Using some liquid water colours, I coloured 200 raw blocks using Asia's simple technique before laying them out on baking paper to dry.
I think they turned out beautifully and as soon as they were dry enough to play with my 5yr old sat down and started counting them. Win!
She got to 133 before things got a little wobbly so I used the blocks to show her how they could be grouped to make them easier to count.
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I wanted us to be able to use them on our metal whiteboards in our kitchen as well as on the floor or table so I cut up some self-adhesive magnet paper into small squares and she helped me stick them on to the blocks.
This was a great fine motor strengthening activity I hadn't even planned on.
Once they were all done, we could play!
And we made some pictures.
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How can you see them being used? Leave a comment, I'd love to hear your suggestions!
*** Just a note of caution, these blocks are both small and unsealed. You know your own children though so if you think that either of these things pose a risk to their safety because they still mouth objects, maybe wait until they are older to introduce these mini blocks.
