When all the coloured pencils find their place
16.4.2020
Translation: machine translated
There was a lot of confusion in our colour box. My children rarely found the right colour. That's why we made a wooden pencil holder to put an end to the chaos.
The new pencil holder has now been in use for a good week. My children are delighted with it. They finally have an overview of all the colours and also enjoy sorting them. An additional plus point: our craft table is finally tidy. From the perspective of Montessori pedagogy, the pencil holder encourages the child to adhere to the prescribed organisational structures. It promotes learning and recognition of colours and clean working at the workplace.
You need the following items
For the pencil holder, you need a wooden beam at least 7 cm high and 6 cm wide - the length varies depending on how many coloured pencils you want to store. For the holes, you will need a compass and a drill with a forstner drill bit attachment. To give the holder its splashes of colour, you will need a brush, a sheet of paper or cardboard and acrylic paints. A ruler and pencil are also useful tools.
Here we go
The pen holder should have space for six colours. To do this, measure the centre of the long side with a ruler and mark it with a pencil. Then set the compass to a diameter of 3 cm or the width of your drill and draw six circles, each 1.5 cm apart. Then use the drill to mill the holes to a depth of 5 cm.
Each hole is marked with a different colour. Make a template out of paper or cardboard. Use the compass to draw a slightly larger circle than the one you have milled out and cut it out with the scissors. Then place the template in the centre of each of the six circles and trace it with the pencil. Now you can colour the edge and the shaft with the matching acrylic paint and a brush. Once the paint is dry, your pencil holder is ready.
After the paint was dry, my children were allowed to fill the holder with all their coloured pencils. They carried it all over the house and diligently sorted their crayons: green to green, blue to blue and red to red, and so on. They couldn't stop sorting at all.
If you're looking for more craft ideas for you and your children, take a look at my author profile. There's a lot waiting for you there.
I'm more of a thinker than a doer. Yet I'm still always active: crafting, sewing, writing to-do lists, daydreaming, counting clouds, digging into soil, comforting my two little ones and collapsing into bed after a long day. If it were up to me, each day would have a few extra hours... I wonder if that would be enough.