For some time I’ve been subscribed to the Montessori Materials Makers list. Basically it’s a group that uses Flylady’s principles of zones (there are 5 areas into which montessori activities are grouped) and 15 minutes chunks of work, to create materials for doing Montessori activities.

When I first joined I got enthused, and as it was about the same time I got into Hardanger and was collecting some embroidery threads, so I made the three Colour Tablet sets. Since then, I basically have done nothing.

I started again recently:-)

I decided that the Sandpaper Letters would be a material I could see getting sufficient use, far enough in the future for me to start them now and have them done before Puggle reaches the readiness stage for them (I could just see myself making something and getting it finished, only to have him past the stage for using it…). So, over the last week or so I selected a suitable font (Chalkboard, 250pt) and printed out my templates.

The other day I got my ’sandpaper’ (I went with 240 grit wet and dry, so that it is as near to black as possible) and I also got the cardboard to use as the backing. I have cut out all the templates, and am in the process of tracing them onto the ’sandpaper’ and cutting them out.

At this stage, I am doing just the lowercase letters, but I’m also doing a set of numbers and the blends/dipthongs (although, I’m not sticking to just the Montessori list, I’m using the ones from ‘The Writing Road to Reading‘ as I think that will be of more use long term). I think I will probably also do a set of capitals, but not yet. I will also probably not bother with the script version!

Today I cut most of my backing cards. I had got two sheets each of green and red, and one of blue card. I cut half of one of the green sheets into ten 10.2mm by 12.7mm rectangles (it may seem like random measurements, but was what resulted from dividing the large sheets evenly), I may still trim them a little further to make them even sizes… we’ll see:-) The rest of the green will be used to do the blends and dipthongs, so I’m going to wait to cut them. One third of the blue sheet was cut into six 10.5mm by 16.8mm rectangles for the vowels (I will probably cut them to two thirds the height, as the vowels are all short letters), and most of the red were cut into twenty one rectangles of the same size for the consonants. Some of these will also be trimmed down to the same size as the vowel cards, for the short consonants. Currently, these are all sitting between flat things to uncurl them.

I’m not sticking to the zones… I think that I am much less likely to actually complete anything at all if I rotate, I’ll keep working on one material until it is finished. Nor am I sticking strictly to 15 minute blocks. But I am working on them a bit at a time… most of it is while we’re in front of the TV in the evening. So I will continue to work on the letters (actually, I could probably do the numbers in one more sitting, and they are actually Maths rather than Language, so I’d have completed something from another zone:-) ) until I have them done. I’m cutting out the letters for the blends/dipthongs, but I don’t intend finishing them until the alphabet proper is completed.

And I should be able to get them done before Puggle is ready to learn specific letter sounds!