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Saturday, October 13, 2012

DIY Geoboard

I've been waiting and waiting for my husband to make one of this geoboards for a while. My dear husband is SO busy between work, traveling and all the projects that I bring him. So today I made my OWN geoboard! I got to say that I am very proud of myself for making it...cutting it and all that involved in making it...It was easy. I had the right tools.

So to make your geoboard you need:

- A pegboard that you can get at the hardware store. I had mine left over from another project.
- A jigsaw
- Machine screw nuts and machine screws. See picture below for details.
- Two Clamps
- Sand paper (not fully necessary)





This are the nuts and screws I used. I bought them from Ace Hardware. They cost 15 dollars. I bet if you buy them online they are cheaper. I hope this pictures help you know exactly the kind you need and you can get them online. 



I cut it myself!


Umi helped sanding the edge to clean it a little bit.



I am missing a few pictures that were taken with my fathers phone. I will post them when he sends it to me.

So after I marked the line with a pencil where I want it to cut the pegboard then I clamped the board to the work bench. I used the jigsaw to cut it. I never used the jigsaw before and it wasn't that hard at all. It didn't came as perfectly straight as I wanted to but close enough. So the main part is ready. After that I attached all the screws I had in every other whole. Towards the end I realized that I didn't have enough screws. So I decided to make the small geoboard first to see if they get really into it and if they do I will finish the bigger piece late on. I attached the screws from the back and put the nuts on the front. Umi helped with this part as much as he could. Even Little Princess helped. It was an easy project than even a woman can do!



They liked playing with it! 

Good luck making your geoboard!


Another ideas to make a geoboard: 

1) Use a piece of wood or particle board you may have and use a sheet of graph paper to mark the where the nails are going to be placed. So you can paint the board first or skip it and nail the nails one by one or with a nail gun. 

2) Use a cork board and pins. So you do the same as before mark where you want the pins to go and pin it that way or if your child is little you could use the hot gun to secure them in place.

3) Use a foam board and pins. To use the foam board you may need to glue a few together to make it thick enough got the pin not to stick out. You can find this foam boards at the Dollar Tree store or other 99 C stores. So if you get 2 and cut them in half you will have enough to make it thicker. Once it is cut to the size you want mark where you want the pins and then pin them. You can hot glue them so they won't come out. This option is a good one to take along with you since it is very light and portable.

Make sure to get your children involved in the making of the board. My son is 3 and 1/2 and he helped putting the screws in. He had a hard time screwing the nuts. So I let him help with whatever he could and he had fun learning to make it and math along with it too. I put the screws in every other whole so he had to count and make sure he places the screws in the right whole. 

Well, I can't think about what else to use. Do you have a geoboard you make and you'd like to share it? Please, leave a link in the comment box!

Good luck geoboarding!

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