The Montessori peg board is used with Elementary students for a few different math topics: factors, common multiples, square roots. It could also be used for geometric multiplication work, and other work besides.
As I’ve mentioned, FunGirl doesn’t love working with materials. She likes to move to paper work or abstraction pretty quickly. However, I introduced each topic with the hands on materials, and we work together with them once or twice. She’ll be ready to work on square roots at some point in the next year and my previous attempt at a DIY wasn’t very good.
Someone in a Facebook group suggested using push pins on a grid! Great idea!
A Google Image search for “Montessori Peg Board” produced a good image, so I saved it to my computer.
I think went to OfficeDepot.com and clicked through to their copy services menu. I discovered that poster printing starts at $13 for a 16″x20″ poster, but if you go to copy services, printing on 11″x17″ ledger/tabloid paper starts at 76 cents!
I uploaded the pegboard image and made the following adjustments:
First, I changed the paper size to ledger.
Second, I clicked the ‘Fit to Page’ button to make the pegboard print as large as possible.
Finally, I changed the paper type. I went with a glossy cardstock. Even choosing the most expensive option, my pegboard printing is costing me $1.67, as you can see.
I stopped by the dollar store and picked up a $1 sheet of foam core board. I cut the board in half (using my fabric rotary cutter…shhh!) and used glue dots to fix the two halves together. This will make the foam core thicker than the pushpins! Oh – my pin storage container is from the dollar store too.
While I was at the dollar store I picked up a few packs of push pins too. I might need more, but we’ll see how much we use the material.
I used white/yellow pins to pin the pegboard to the foam core, and we’re ready to go! Total cost – about $6, though I might need more pins.
Pretty cool huh? And to be honest, if it doesn’t hold up, it’ll cost me $1.67 for a re-print, plus $1 for new foam core board. This was a super quick, easy DIY. I’m happy to make it 2 or 3 times if we need to.
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