Introduction to Addition ➕ a DIY maths busy box.

A few months ago, something came up that made me show the Mini simple addition using my fingers. He was so mesmerized by 'plus' that he requested for a 'plus activity!'.

As much as I was delighted that he understood how I set up activities based on his interests 😀, I didn't want to, as he is yet to learn the concept of addition at school. I usually prefer going in pace with his teachers.

But next day, as soon as he came back from school, he asked if I had set up the 'plus activity'! 😁 Well then, follow the child they say! So, I set this maths busy box for him. I wanted to keep it as simple and straight forward as possible.

Numbers Pizza Puzzle

Numbers and Value Pizza Puzzle 🔢🍕

I made a simple puzzle with craft paper, to help the little guy understand and correlate numbers with their values.

ABC Pizza Puzzle

Mini loved the Numbers Pizza Puzzle which I had made for him earlier (a few posts back) that he asked for a letters puzzle next... So here it is! 😀

Rummaged through my stickers collection and managed to put together a few letters.

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.

DIY Car Wash

Here is another super simple DIY toy that I made using an empty cardboard box - A Car Wash! With the level of obsession my little boy has for vehicles, I knew this one is going to be a super hit with him and it definitely is! :) 

This little handmade toy is often played with love, by the little one for hours and it is a joy to see him lost in his little world of pretend play. The joy of DIY toys is unparallelled! It gives me such a sense of satisfaction when I am able to make something for my son to play with, using not much but scraps and simple stationery. I am thankful for my constant urge to create and for my passion for DIYing.

If you do have a little vehicle lover at home, and an empty cardboard box lying around, do yourself a favour and make a Car Wash right away! Hours of play for the little one and some me-time for you guaranteed :)

DIY Fuel Pump | Play Fuel Pump

I love a good cardboard box DIY! It makes me so happy to convert an unused, old cardboard box that is just lying around, into something fun and pretty! This is one of my favourite cardboard box DIYs, if I am to choose one from the ones I have made so far.

The little fellow has a big collection of toy vehicles of all sizes - tiny, medium and big! He loves each one and engages in a lot of self play with these vehicles, at least for a few minutes every day. 

He have different props and accessories to pair up with the different sets of vehicles. The tiniest set of vehicles are best played in our sensory rice bin. The medium sized ones are used to play along with play dough. I try to encourage him to keep them separate as much as possible, to avoid messing them up too much and also to up the fun factor! A sticky wheel after a play dough play session is not going to be fun in a rice bin!

So, for the big vehicles, he didn't have any particular prop to pair up as such. He would just run them over cushions pretending it to be speed breakers. Since I had two boxed that seemed just perfect to make a big enough fuel pump to suit the big vehicles, I decided to make it as a play prop for them.

Honestly I am not sure who had more fun - me making the cute little pump or he playing with it! It was just super fun to put this together. I had planned on using the cap of his spray bottle for this DIY, but when I found a store that sells only the spray bottle cap, I was super delighted! The pump turned out way better than I had expected and it is still as good as new, after a month of play.

Clips (Paper and Clothes Clips) Activity Ideas

Last couple of days we have been doing a few simple fun activities using chart paper, paper clips and clothes clip. Primarily for improving fine motor skills while also reinforcing numbers and letters recognition and colours matching. These tiny little clips or pegs as they are also called, are great for developing a good pincer grip in little fingers.

When I first introduced the wooden clips to my little boy, a few months ago, it was for a name recognition activity. He found it really hard to work them. He was unable to open the clips. His tiny fingers were not ready for them and so I kept them aside for a few months and we used plastic clips for the activity instead. 

More recently. we again tried our hands at the wooden clips and this time he was able to work them perfectly! This time around, I first let him work on an activity that used plastic clips, then paper clips and finally we moved on to wooden clips. The difficulty level increased step by step and I am guessing that helped him get the hang of it.

Sharing here, the simple games we played and enjoyed using paper clips and clothes clips. 

Popsicle Sticks Rainbow Puzzle

My little boy has always loved puzzles. There was a phase a few months ago, when he would pull out all his puzzles boxes one after another and sit and complete them all. His interests in puzzles has slightly dwindled since. He still sits and solves them when reminded or when they have been away for a while, but unlike earlier, it isn't a daily activity these day.

To keep it interesting and to give him more option without actually buying more puzzles, I had done made this DIY Jigsaw Puzzle using the backside of our existing jigsaw puzzle pieces. This again was much loved by the little fellow and was well used.

More recently, he has a great interest in colours. Rainbow colours attract him and he loves singing a little song related to the colours of the rainbow. When I came across this DIY puzzles idea using popsicle sticks on Instagram, I just knew my Mini would love it and got to work almost immediately.

Some jumbo popsicle sticks, colour pens and pencil is all that you need to make this vibrant looking puzzle.  The single jumbled popsicle sticks are pretty confusing to look at on the first go. So, it was a little tough for him to solve all by himself. I had to help him half way through and he would solve the second half by himself.

 I loved making it for him and he loved seeing the rainbow form as he sat working the puzzle through.

DIY Car Parking and Ramp

Oh look what I found! This DIY car ramp is from over two years ago, one of my first craft projects that I made for my little guy. He was just about 15 months old when I made this for him and was already a little car lover :) He had a handful of little cars that he enjoys playing with. So sheets from an empty cardboard box, had decided to attempt making a little car parking and ramp for him.

Back then, I used his nap-times as a measure of time as that was all the free time I had at hand!! :D So this project costed me all of just one nap-time to make, which was about 2 hours. It was quite therapeutic and fun for me as it was after ages that I was actually sitting and painting something. I enjoyed the process. 

Of course the little muffin loved it! Oh just look at that happy face! He placed his little cars atop the ramp and pushed them down the ramp using his chubby pudgy fingers! 

DIY Mini Construction Site

My boy loves LOVES vehicles. And I LOVE DIYs !! This one is an awesome combination of both :)

I had a huge cardboard box lying around that I decided to convert into a simple construction site for the Mini. With some inspiration from Pinterest and some own ideas I made this Mini Construction Site.

First off, I taped the bottom of the cardboard box shut so that it cannot be opened from below. 

Then, I painted one side blue depict the blue sky and stuck a few cotton balls randomly to make cute little puffy clouds. Once the paint dried, added a sun on one top corner and using a black sketch pen, drew little birdies and a few buildings.

Also drew some roads and lanes on the base of the cardboard box to depict little roads for the vehicles to go on. I placed a few trays here and there and filled them with chickpeas, cotton balls, pompoms to depict various construction materials. 

Then, in came all the little construction vehicles, randomly placed across the roadways that I just drew. I also placed a few cotton balls and some chickpeas on his mini construction vehicles as well, as play prompts.

That was it! A mini construction site was ready for the little one. He happily plopped himself right inside box, at the heart of the site and began exploring the various items I had in there for him. 

Looks like the little construction engineer is on a dream break :)