Hot Glue Rubbing Plates

Sweet Pea is 36 months old.

From: I thought these Doodle Rubbings on This Little Project looked really fun.

Material:

Pencil.
Hot Glue Gun & Glue Sticks.
Several pieces of cardboard. (I just cut up an old Pampers box.)
Paper.
Crayons.
Tape.

Procedure:

Use a pencil to lightly draw shapes (square, heart, circle, etc) on the cardboard.
Draw over the shapes with a hot glue gun and then let the glue dry.

Tape one of the cardboard glue plates to the table where your tot will be working.
Tape a blank piece of paper over the cardboard plate.
Show your tot how rub the side of a crayon over the paper until the image appears.
Let your tot try it on his or her own.

Observations: Sweet Pea had a really hard time with this. She just didn’t seem to have enough control to make the rubbings. She enjoyed watching me make them, but wasn’t really able to create them herself.

This would probably be fun for an older child, but Sweet Pea was just too young for it. I wouldn’t recommend it for this age group. I have seen some commercial rubbing plates and we might try those in the future, but I don’t think I’ll try make my own again.

Notes from the Trenches: I think I may have made the glue too thick. The instructions at This Little Project indicated that you should put the glue gun really close the cardboard so that the glue ends up being somewhat flat on the cardboard. My glue was pretty high and somewhat uneven, so that might have been part of our problem. None of our rubbings turned out as nicely good as the ones from This Little Project.

It also took quite a bit of work to convince Sweet Pea to rub with the side of the crayon instead of just drawing with the tip.