I actually went to college for this

Not everyone knows this, but I am a trained ECE, or Early Childhood Educator.  I never found full-time work in the field because sadly this society will not pay people as much money to care for their children as they will to drive buses.

Facing the prospect of 4 hours on a Greyhound bus, followed by 4 hours in an airplane (plus various wait times at the terminals), I called on my expertise to come up with some activities to keep my boys occupied.

They’ve already shown that they love playing with the felt board (I have many stories and characters left over from my daycare days).  My step-son (8 years old) recently informed me, however, that magnets are “cooler” than felt.  Okay.

So I wanted to make a portable magnet board that didn’t weigh a ton.  I found these neat, zippered portfolios at the Dollarama.  Then I also found some cookie sheets, and nearly peed with excited when they turned out to be magnetic.  Normally those cheap baking pans are aluminum and magnets won’t stick. (Ahem, note the price tags.  The Dollarama has recently become “The Dollar-Twenty-five-rama.”)

Then I cut the lips off the cookie sheets using Fiskars scissors.  This is a job that should probably be left to people who know what they are doing, and who have the right tools.  I will spare you the pictures of my bloody finger.  Next time I make one of these things, I’ll get the bodyshop guys at work to cut & grind the metal.  I taped up the edges to cover the sharp sides.  Then I just hot-glued the metal sheet to one side of the portfolio, and I hot glued a piece of craft felt to the other side, and voila!  A portable magnet/felt board.

Like my Disney’s Cars magnets?  I just found some clipart on the Internet, resized the photos and placed them all on one 8.5”x11” Photoshop file, then printed them on magnet sheets.  I’ve also made magnet sets for Tonka Trucks(The Toys R Us website is a great source for finding pictures of those) and Lego Batman characters.  I like to cover them with clear contact paper before cutting them apart.  Dirty fingers, ya know!

The possibilities are really endless.  Don’t forget to make letters & numbers magnets using some really cool fonts.