Upcycled magnet board

Nik has been overflowing with questions lately. "Where are we going today, mom? Who is going to be there? Who is coming to our house? When are we going to Grandma's? Is it preschool today? Are we going shopping? Can we go to the movie store?" and on and on and on.

Although at first this seemed to be the stuff that rubber rooms are made of, after some reflection (and sleep) I decided to look at it as the perfect opportunity to introduce some calendar time into our day. We could work on the names and order of the days of the week, the numbers from 1-31, the concepts of yesterday, today and tomorrow, along with some sight words, all while answering the questions I am answering everyday anyways.

Voila, my upcycled magnet board turned kid's perpetual calendar!

Made mainly of second hand and dollar store materials, this calendar should fit our needs beautifully for easily less than $10.

Now, this is a board I picked up second hand for $1.99. It does double duty as both a magnet board and a dry erase board. It was kind of grungy, but here is something you probably didn't know... Hand sanitizer cleans these babies like nobody's business.

I found the graphics and lettering on the board kind of distracting, so I flipped it around and cut out simple cardstock shapes to cover them. I adhered the paper to the board with glue dots, and later added a flower embellishment the same way.




Using permanent marker, I wrote the names of the days of the week down the side of the board, leaving space on the left hand side of the words so I could add each day's date with magnetic numbers.



At this point, I could have done everything else in dry erase marker. However, because I am hoping my son will pick up some sight words from doing calendar with me, I thought I would create some custom magnets that we would use over and over.

I made the first magnets from a magnetic frame designed to hold a 4x6 photo. These are easy to find in 2 packs at the dollar store.

What started as this,

quickly became this, with the help of my permanent marker and scissors.

Because the magnet was originally designed to hold a photo, it easily converted into a pocket to hold the name of the current month.

I made our 'To Do' list items magnetic, by writing them on pieces of cardstock, and attaching small magnets to the back with mounting squares. The magnets I used were the 'fridge poetry' type, that I had gotten for free (Thanks, Downtown Peggy!), but you could also use another frame cut into bits, or even pieces of magnetic business cards.
Put it all together and, presto! Finished calendar. The plastic bag to the right has a zipper and a handle, and so will be the perfect place to store all the magnetic numbers not in use, as well as the various month names. There is also some storage space right on the board, in the 'grass'. All of the extra agenda items are there now.

Hubby hung it up in Nik's room as soon as he got home. It is low enough for Nik to 'read', but out of the way enough that it shouldn't be disturbed. I am so happy with how it turned out, and can't wait to start using it!