After School Crew - Week 5

After School Crew - Week 5

Magnet Boards

For our fifth week of After School Crew, we made magnet boards. This is one of my absolute favorite projects. The kids get to be super creative with what they make, and it's a craft that can be used (rather than a picture that hangs on the fridge for  few weeks before getting tossed). The magnets can be moved around on the board, or can be used to display pictures, notes, and papers.

 

Something else I love is that Magnet Boards are crazy simple.You just need a pizza pan (we got ours at walmart for 88 cents a piece), tissue paper, paint, craft foam, glue, and magnets.

Draw a circle on the tissue paper (it's easiest to just lay the paper on top of the pan, and trace around the bottom portion). I usually use two sheets of tissue paper for a little added thickness. Use tacky glue to attach the tissue paper to the pizza pan. I typically create a spiral pattern from the center of the pan to the edge so it's attached securely. 

Give the tissue paper time to dry. I usually do this the day before... or at least a few hours in advance.

The tissue paper is just there to give you a paintable surface (acrylic paint peels off of the pan pretty easily). Once the paper is dry, it can be painted in any fashion you would like. Make sure to instruct children to paint gently, as it is possible for the paper to tear (which can be easily repaired with a little more glue, should it happen). 

My space board has splotches of black, blue, and purple, with gold and white speckles for stars. The fun of this project is that kids can create whatever they want. We ended up with a Minecraft board, an underwater scene, a rainbow, a forest, a face, a pizza... basically anything you could think of. 

The magnets are just made by cutting craft foam and attaching it to button magnets or magnetic tape. Allow the glue on the magnets and the paint on the board to dry... and you're done!

The magnet boards can be used to play (moving cars or people of other figures across them), to tell stories (you can easily throw some together with characters from picture books), or to decorate (we have one holding up notes about After School Crew right now).