Happy 2013!

I came up with the idea of plastic weaving letters, numbers, shapes and objects while writing my Kindle book "The Almost Complete Plastic Bottle Activity Book".   I have "patent pending" status for my "weavable toys" and am currently looking for a manufacturer or business that wants to have these manufactured and then pay me royalties.  

Weaving shapes reinforces letter and number formation concepts while strengthening fingers. There is a lot of motor planning involved in pushing the pieces in and out through the notches. These are a lot of work to make out of detergent bottles and I am hoping that they will soon be available for purchase. However, I am happy to share here for those Do It Yourself-ers.....

The sizes of the shapes and number/sizes of the notches determine how challenging these will be to connect.  You have the option of creating a single shape such as the 2 to weave or create 2 shapes to put together like in the two round shapes that form the 3.  

 Obviously weaving the straight line in the 1 is easier than weaving the round shapes.... 

Younger children may be given  1 single shape to weave into the larger notched shape.

But older children may be given 2 or more shapes (such as the 2 and 0 in the photo) and pieces to match up before weaving. This works on visual discrimination skills, its sort of like putting a puzzle together.... 

The last photo shows the 2 shapes positioned upside down with the detergent labels showing. Tell the children that only the plain color sides should be showing and then the correct side will be facing upwards.