DIY Pushpin Board

Pushpins are great for little hands to work on and develop their pincer grip. A good amount of pressure is required to push a pin down onto a board and the more the little hands practice this, the better for them. Its a fun pre-writing activity to keep minis entertained.

I wanted to try a few activities that needed a pegboard and a geoboard. We don't have both, so I DIYed a Pushpin Board, that now serves as both! I mounted it on a little box for ease of use and am very pleased with the results! 

This is definitely going down as one of my favorite and most productive DIYs. So much learning is a single toy! This is a long post with tonnes of pictures, but definitely worth scrolling through if you are a DIY fan like me who has a little one at home, who you want to keep busy creatively :)

Here are a few activity sheets for our pushpin board. These are great for developing pincer grip and fine motor skills.

• Colour Match - poke the pins on the coloured dots based on colour.

Colour Match

• Number Sequencing - wrap rubber band around the pushpins (0-1,1-2,2-3...etc) in order of numbers.

Number Sequencing

• Letter, Shape and Pattern Tracing - poke pins along the outlines.

Pattern Tracing

Letter Tracing

• Sticker Match - wrap rubber band around the pushpins of similar stickers.

Sticker Match

• Count and Match - wrap rubber band around pushpins of pictures with their corresponding number. 

Count and Match

• The Mini came up with a new activity as well... Random pattern making the pushpin and rubber bands.

How I Made the Pushpin Board:

• Wrap a cardboard box like you would wrap a gift.

 

• Cut a piece of thermocol and cardboard sheet, to size of one side of the box. Stick these two together, making sure the cardboard is on top. (push pins will sit better on cardboard than on thermocol but need the height of a thermocol) 
• Wrap it in laminated sheet (easy to stick with activity sheets on top without damaging the cover), again like you would a gift.

 

• Stick the thermocol - cardboard wrapped box on top of the wrapped cardboard box. That's it!

The DIY Pushpin Board is ready! 

With our pushpin board ready, lets get to the various fun things we can do with it!

Colour Match

This is the most simplest of the activities and so this was what we began with. For this activity, I drew random dots in blue, red, green and yellow all over a sheet of paper. I then taped this sheet onto our pushpin board and placed a plate full of pushpins beside. 

 

The little man was to pin in the pins onto their respective dots.

That concentration though ! :)

Number Sequencing

For this activity, I wrote numbers from 0-10 in the correct order, but not in a straight line. I then poked in pins beside each number. I placed a few rubber bands beside the board. 

 

He was to pair two pins at a time with the rubber bands in the sequence 0-1, 1-2, 2-3 and so on. Until he reached 9-10.

Oh the joy! :)

Letter, Shape and Pattern Tracing

For this activity I made two work sheets, one with shapes and one with letters. I drew 4 shapes in one and wrote 4 letters in one. I taped one sheet at a time on the pushpin board and placed a few pins beside.

The little guy had to punch in the pins all along the shapes and the letters. This one in particular is an excellent pre-writing activity. 

That face of concentration, again! :)

I just love the expression! :D

Sticker Match

For this activity, I used pairs of stickers and pasted them in two coloumns, with one from each pair on their columns. I pinned pushpins beside each sticker on both columns. I stick this sheet of paper on the board and placed some rubber bands beside the board.

The tiny had to match the stickers on both columns and pair the pins beside the pair of stickers, using a rubber band.

Can you tell, much fun was had!? :)

Count and Match

For this activity, I drew 6 little objects on the left side, of different numbers. And wrote numbers from 1-6 in random order on the right column. I punched in pins along each drawing and number on both columns. I taped the sheet on the board and placed a few rubber bands beside.

The Mini had to count the number of objects in the left column, find the number on the right and match them, by pairing the pins using a rubber band.

Some quick math exercise along with fine motor skill play :)

Random Pattern Making

So this one was done all by the little guy. He went about randomly pinning the pins on the dots (form the first worksheet) and even in spaces with no dots. And then went on to put in rubber bands across the pins in random order thereby making random patterns! Kept him busy for a good amount of time!

Please Note!

• I was constantly monitoring while he was working with the pins. Please make your own judgment to decide if your child is ready to work with it. 
• Make sure the rubber bands are not too small. If it's too small or tight, it could rip off the pin from the board.
• Keep it out of reach soon after play.
• Over time the top surface will get riddled with a lot of holes from all the poking. I just plan to add another cardboard sheet when that happens.