Most of us have them in our centres; you know them and love them as those rainbow coloured magnetic letters. I fondly remember them from my grandparents fridge always being at my eye level. Children love them and use them for letter recognition, spelling and sounding out words, learning to spell their name and even just make patterns with the colours.With that being said…we are moving into a more natural environment for our classrooms; so with some spare blocks I decided to create my twist on the classic fridge magnets!
I first started with some spare wood blocks that came from my head office but I was told you could get them from here
1)I picked out 26 that were closest in size and made sure to use any of the small blocks for the smaller letters like “C” “D” “O”. I wrote them on with a regular sharpie marker.
2)Knowing the health department I lay them all out on a huge cutting board and Podged them in two coats… I use MOD PODGE -Matte which I got from Walmart but I know you can also get from Michael’s. I suggest putting the podge on by applying thin coats and allowing them to fully dry in between.
3)After I left them to completely dry I took craft magnets from the dollars store ( I found more heavy duty ones then the bendable ones) and hot glued them to the back; making sure I was generous with the glue. They came in a package that has a metal circle to hold the magnets on which I saved for another idea for a later date.
So far the children have really enjoyed this addition to the room and I’m sure I’ll find the pieces in every nook and cranny soon but they are easy enough to replace. They look great and are easily created!
