We’re all about doing it ourselves here at the Farm Fresh Family.
Aviana (7)has had her eye on the Young Builder’s Tool Kit in one of our favorite catalogs, but it was $55!
I found a fishing tackle box the right size at Goodwill for $.88 and Kevin filled it with tools he had spares of (which thanks to his dad’s habit of ‘losing’ tools and therefore buying new ones was not much of a challenge). Ta-Da! A DIY Young Builder’s Tool kit.
Then he put together a project that she would be able to easily do. He prepped part of it by cutting two of the side lengths for her. She had to hammer them on to the base, measure and cut the other other sides, and hammer them on.
This is an abacus. She’d already made one from a shoebox, yarn and beads, following the directions from our vintage Childcraft Mathemagic book completely independently.
It turned out really cool and useful (especially as neither Kevin nor I even knew how to use an abacus until Aviana got interested in it!), but unfortunately, it wasn’t, ahem, Denton proof.
Then she had to measure where to put the holes, mark them and drill them. And then clean up afterwords, natch.
She’s got the frame painted (never mind the blue paint water spilled on my cream carpet, ahem, DENTON!), and then plans to paint the wooden beads that are going to be strung on wire through the holes she drilled.
I’m pretty impressed with her building skills (her follow through remains to be seen.)
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On another educational note, Happy Leap Day! Here is a pretty fun though fast talking video. You may want to pause and re-explain if you’re watching with wee ones.