The Pink Tower and Brown Stair are two of the most recognized Early Montessori Materials.
Here is our DIY version of both.
When we decided to incorporate Montessori Materials into our home school environment there were many materials we decided that we could make for a reasonable cost, and these two materials fell into that category.
The early lessons for both materials include the sequential building or assembling of both materials. They experience them by size and weight. However after the initial presentations are past and they can assemble both readily, some of the most fun and interesting (to our children) were/are the design extensions.
The concept of sequential ordering of blocks is very basic and there are many toys and materials on the retail market that can accomplish this skill very nicely.
I chose to do this post together because if you are going to make these materials it is great to know that they work together. If you plan to use them for extension design work they will need to be made in the same dimensions. The easiest way to do this is to make the broad stair prisms and cut you cubes from the ends. We needed to laminate (glue together) several pieces of scrap pine in order to make the largest block sizes. We used a table saw to make the cuts.
After a great deal of sanding you can choose to leave yours natural in colour or to paint them. I used spray paint for ours.
The extensions we are using are from Montessori Print Shop.
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OMG Cherine! You're the only one I know who DIY'ed your pink tower and brown stair, and NAILED IT! These look so store-bought, I can't believe it. I'm pinning! May I ask how much these ended up costing you?
ReplyDeleteYou have made my day!! Thank you so much you are so sweet :) We were so excited to make these!! My husband is such a trooper! We used all scrap wood that we already had. The paint was around 5$ per can. Now you could leave them natural and pay nothing for paint or you could just paint the tower. Because ours went through the table saw, it wasn't as important that the wood be perfect. You can also use wood filler for any imperfections that you would like to get rid of. Personally I think a really natural imperfect version would be just as beautiful. Thank you so much for taking the time to comment!!
DeleteYou really are such an inspiration. I love how much information you share with others.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much! I appreciate your saying that so much!!
DeleteCan you provide more detail as to how these were made?
ReplyDeleteWhat tools? What type of wood?
Thanks
J
The wood used was laminated pine 2 x 4" stock lumber and all cuts were made very carefully with a table saw. Hope that helps :)
DeleteOk I know I'm full of questions..Why do you need to wax them before you paint them? Does it make the paint last longer? For the pink tower and brown stairs, I heard you need to use layers of wood to get the right size and then glue them together??
ReplyDeleteYou can use a wax for a natural finish or paint them it's your choice. For the larger blocks (unless you have custom milled wood) you will need to laminate (glue) what ever wood you have to get the dimensions.
DeleteHi how did you make the large pieces of prisms with 2x4? Did you glue two together?
ReplyDeleteYes we laminated/glued the wood together. We made sure the wood we used was as straight as we could. We glued and clamped together to make the final cuts. Hope that helps!
DeleteHow did you make 10x10 pieces? In order to do so one would need larger than 4x4 wood which is hard to find. Did you glue pieces together? Thanks!
ReplyDeleteYes we did :)
DeleteHi
ReplyDeleteHow did you hide the layering from glue. It's obvious only for 10x10 but with 2x4 I would think you had to glue for everything above 4 maybe 5 cm. Thanks!
Yes and some of the seams are visible on ours, but we were ok with that. You can also use 4x4" to reduce some laminating. If you fill and sand really well it will reduce the visibility.
DeleteIf they are clamped well together you will hardly be able to tell they are glued layers
DeleteAbsolutely Laura!!
Deletethank you for sharing these are great! forgive me, are all measuents cm? There's no specification for 1x1 2x2 3x3 etc.
ReplyDeleteYes!! Good luck with making yours!!
DeleteCould I buy a 6in x 6in post and cut down to size? I know we don't have the tools or the know how to clamp and glue. I would normally just buy these but I plan to stain them, the only stained one I could find for the tower is $70!!
ReplyDeleteYes you could certainly do that 💖
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