Prego to Legos: $10 DIY Magnetic Activity Calendar

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

$10 DIY Magnetic Activity Calendar

I saw the cutest activity calendar on Pinterest and was inspired to create my own. I didn't do it exactly the same way, though.

My son is now 2 1/2 years old, and we love planning different things to do. He goes to daycare 5 days a week and a fun little gym on Saturdays. We always talk about what we're doing and what's coming up, but it's a hard concept for little ones to grasp! Visuals always help. And of course, toddlers love to help and do things themselves, so what's better than little magnets for all the different activities that they can help put onto a magnetic calendar?

I started with a 14"x14" dry erase board that I found for less than $7 at Walmart. It's similar to this one pictured here:

Then I used my Silhouette Cameo and some scrap vinyl to cut out letters for the days of the week, a thin stripe, and the words "This Week" and "Coming up..." I hate measuring (*gasp!*) so just eyeballed the placement of all my vinyl lettering, and placed my little stripe approximately halfway down the board. (If you don't have a vinyl cutter, you can get alphabet stickers or make magnets with your days of the week and phrases on them to match the icons!)

I thought it'd be nice to have activities for the current week and then for next week and the near future. I didn't want to limit ourselves to only showing activities for the next week, because sometimes we talk about events a few weeks in advance - like for holidays or birthdays. I like to get the excitement started early!

I drew various little icons and colored them, then cut them out and "laminated" them. Each icon is about 1/2" to 3/4" - I figured for a 14x14" board and 7 days of the week, I needed to allot slightly less than 2 inches per week, so there would be space between. I thought about putting grid lines down between each weekday but liked the openness of the board without.

I "laminated" the icons using packing tape. For small things, it's a really easy and inexpensive way to do it. Just tear off a strip and lay it down sticky side up. Then lay your item on the tape and then slowly lower another piece of tape on top. HINT: if you make sure to keep your icons close to the center of the first strip and away from the edge, it won't be a big deal if you end up crooked with your second piece like I constantly ended up doing. Then I had to go and lay another piece to cover the gap.

I also found a roll of adhesive magnetic strip (about $3 for 1 foot of magnet) and cut small pieces of it to stick to the back of each laminated icon.

Here are a few of the icons I've made in black and white and in color.

Here's a link to download the printable pdfs in black and white and color as well.

Additional packs of calendar icons are available for download through my Etsy.

Use coupon code BLOG10 for 10% off!

I'm working on different themed packs: Holidays, Chores, Activities, Outdoors, Seasonal Activities, Weather, etc. A little preview: