Running with Boys: Business in the front, party in the back

and no I am not talking about my husband's hairstyle that he rocked throughout his childhood.

Pretty excited about what our creativity drew us to yesterday, time to share!

One class that I really treasure and loved in college was play education. It sounds silly and my peers always teased us when we would be making toys from household objects and getting graded on them. But as a full time Mama, I now can really appreciate the idea that toys are normally better made than bought.

So I have been trying to figure out a great visual and hands on tool that will help with teaching the basics to our soon to be 2 year old (sigh.. is he really almost 2?) I wanted to combine letters, numbers, shapes, and colors SOMEHOW in one item. We started with a large piece of wood I had leftover from another project, 5 sheets of adhesive vinyl in the colors of the rainbow ( I selfishly left out violet for my own projects) , and my hand dandy cricut .

I made a quick plan organizing an even amount of letters, numbers, and shapes. Put the vinyl on the cricut and got to work, well Mr. Man thought HE was doing the work ..." cricut SO easy a toddler can do it"

Once the piece were all cut out, we went outside and sanded the board to prevent any splinters. This was the best investment for the types of crafts I love to do. The Black and decker mouse sander, affordable at about 30$ and gets the job done.

After sanding it I realized that I have a complete empty piece of wood on the back. Remembering some neat pinterest pins I thought what a great ramp for hot wheels off of the couch. THEN I realized I had some black spray paint in the garage, why not paint it black and add some scrap yellow vinyl to make it a road? EASY PEAZY

So Mr. played outside while I taped off and painted the board. Took some scrap vinyl and cut little lines out for the road center. Not perfect, but it IS a kids toy after all right?

Once dry I let him give it a go. Without a word he ran into his room, came out with a shirt full of cars and got to work. It's amazing how little boys' brains work... cars , trains, and helicopters ( at least in our house.) Looking at this I realized the paint job looks more like radiator springs BEFORE lightning Mcqueen repaved it, but whatever boys don't care.

This is a terrible picture of the finished project. But you get the idea, right? Letters-numbers-shapes-colors ALL IN ONE! We were playing games like put the lego on A and he would have to find the right letter. He is only 1, I have to remind myself, but this is a great learning tool on one side and toy on the other. Best of both worlds! Now we just need to drill a couple holes so that I can hang it on his wall for a combo of decoration and storage for such a LARGE heavy piece of wood. This could easily be made thinner wood too, would probably be easier to work with. It would also look nice stained or painted, but like I said the glory about boys is NOTHING MATTERS BESIDES cars , trains, and helicopters. And their Dad.