DIY Montessori Pink Tower & Brown/Broad Stair


The Pink Tower and Brown Stair are two of the most recognized Early Montessori Materials. 

Here is our DIY version of both.




When we decided to incorporate Montessori Materials into our home school environment there were many materials we decided that we could make for a reasonable cost, and these two materials fell into that category.


The early lessons for both materials include the sequential building or assembling of both materials. They experience them by size and weight. However after the initial presentations are past and they can assemble both readily, some of the most fun and interesting (to our children) were/are the design extensions. 



The concept of sequential ordering of blocks is very basic and there are many toys and materials on the retail market that can accomplish this skill very nicely. 


I chose to do this post together because if you are going to make these materials it is great to know that they work together. If you plan to use them for extension design work they will need to be made in the same dimensions. The easiest way to do this is to make the broad stair prisms and cut you cubes from the ends. We needed to laminate (glue together) several pieces of scrap pine in order to make the largest block sizes. We used a table saw to make the cuts. 




After a great deal of sanding you can choose to leave yours natural in colour or to paint them. I used spray paint for ours.




The extensions we are using are from Montessori Print Shop.





Thanks for visiting with us!



Please visit and "like" for updates on our

Facebook Page! We share photos and 

updates of what we are up to there!

We love to hear from you!!

If you have any questions for us comment... ASK!!

Visit us on Pinterest as well!!

Don't forget to check out our Montessori 

Subscribe to Making Montessori Ours to get all of our

latest updates by email & Subscribers FREE Printable List.

Enter your email address:


Delivered by FeedBurner

CONVERSATION

20 comments:

  1. OMG Cherine! You're the only one I know who DIY'ed your pink tower and brown stair, and NAILED IT! These look so store-bought, I can't believe it. I'm pinning! May I ask how much these ended up costing you?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You have made my day!! Thank you so much you are so sweet :) We were so excited to make these!! My husband is such a trooper! We used all scrap wood that we already had. The paint was around 5$ per can. Now you could leave them natural and pay nothing for paint or you could just paint the tower. Because ours went through the table saw, it wasn't as important that the wood be perfect. You can also use wood filler for any imperfections that you would like to get rid of. Personally I think a really natural imperfect version would be just as beautiful. Thank you so much for taking the time to comment!!

      Delete
  2. You really are such an inspiration. I love how much information you share with others.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you so much! I appreciate your saying that so much!!

      Delete
  3. Can you provide more detail as to how these were made?
    What tools? What type of wood?

    Thanks

    J

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The wood used was laminated pine 2 x 4" stock lumber and all cuts were made very carefully with a table saw. Hope that helps :)

      Delete
  4. Ok I know I'm full of questions..Why do you need to wax them before you paint them? Does it make the paint last longer? For the pink tower and brown stairs, I heard you need to use layers of wood to get the right size and then glue them together??

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You can use a wax for a natural finish or paint them it's your choice. For the larger blocks (unless you have custom milled wood) you will need to laminate (glue) what ever wood you have to get the dimensions.

      Delete
  5. Hi how did you make the large pieces of prisms with 2x4? Did you glue two together?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes we laminated/glued the wood together. We made sure the wood we used was as straight as we could. We glued and clamped together to make the final cuts. Hope that helps!

      Delete
  6. How did you make 10x10 pieces? In order to do so one would need larger than 4x4 wood which is hard to find. Did you glue pieces together? Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hi
    How did you hide the layering from glue. It's obvious only for 10x10 but with 2x4 I would think you had to glue for everything above 4 maybe 5 cm. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes and some of the seams are visible on ours, but we were ok with that. You can also use 4x4" to reduce some laminating. If you fill and sand really well it will reduce the visibility.

      Delete
    2. If they are clamped well together you will hardly be able to tell they are glued layers

      Delete
  8. thank you for sharing these are great! forgive me, are all measuents cm? There's no specification for 1x1 2x2 3x3 etc.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Could I buy a 6in x 6in post and cut down to size? I know we don't have the tools or the know how to clamp and glue. I would normally just buy these but I plan to stain them, the only stained one I could find for the tower is $70!!

    ReplyDelete

I greatly appreciate your friendly comments and feedback. I love to see what others are making, so please feel free to include a links and share your site with us!!! If you have any questions regarding any of the materials we have made...I'd love to help!!! Thank you for visiting us:)

instagram

Instagram

Follow Us