The Busy Board that everyone can make!
Why make one?
Okay, so you might be thinking what's so good about an Busy Board? Well not only are they fun and easy to make, they are also a great way for babies and toddlers to develop their fine motor skills, along with learning through play and exploring new objects, textures and colours. They are also cheap to make and all items are easy to pick up from your local DIY/Hobbyist shop or even from items no longer in use around the house.
Bits and bobs
First things first you will need some kind of back board for the items to be fixed onto. On our Busy Board we used a piece of MDF, however you could use any type of wood, so if you have something lying around the house, then perfect!
I also painted the board with Certified Toy Safe paint, don't worry it isn't essential you paint the board, however if you do choose to, I used Rustoleum Furniture Paint which works great on wood.
The items I picked up to fix for our Busy Board were cogs, door latches, lights switches, wheels, fidget spinner, door stop and a zip. However there is a whole range of different items which you could use, so it's just down to personal preference what items you decide to place on your board. I also purchased some wooden letters spelling out my sons name which I got from Ebay and again painted them.
Finally I got some washers, screws and superglue to fix the items to the board. You will require a drill and screw driver to assist the making process. Nothing special, so if you don't have these items to hand, rather than go out and buy they I recommend you ask around from family or friends, rather than incurring the cost of purchasing these new.
The making process
First of all I gave the MDF board a few coats of paint in white. Just ensure you do give any wood a sand down prior to painting, along with a gentle rub down after the first coat to take off any roughness. Along with the white paint I also had various left over child friendly paints which i thought would look good as a rainbow design, so I decided to funk it up with this!
Once the painting was out the way it was time to start fixing the items to the board. I temporarily placed the items on the board in the design I thought worked best, prior to fixing anything in place. Once happy with the positions of the items, it was time to start fixing them in place.
Most of the items were as easy as drilling a small hole and screwing into place. I did require to drill a hole through the center of the fidget spinner, so a screw could go through to fix it to the board, however this was actually relatively easy with it being plastic. I placed a washer underneath the cog and a washer on top to allow it to spin freely and finally glued the zip and letters in place with super glue.
Finally ...
It really was as easy as that and I really enjoyed designing it. After painting it actually only took around 45minutes to fix all the items in place.
The following morning it was time to show it to Dexter, however as you will see it was also a hit with my three year old who also loves fiddling with all the bits and bobs. I'm so glad I made this and would encourage you to give it a go!