Texture Board

This semester I am covering for the infant teacher for an hour every day so she can have her lunch break. During that time, I am constantly scoping her room for all her great ideas to share with my readers! Here's a new one she put up today:

TEXTURE BOARD

She cut white cardboard (heavy cardstock, back of cereal boxes, shirt boxes, etc.) into squares and rectangles.

She hot-glued different textures onto the cardboard. She used a lot of glue, especially around the edges and worked to pull the materials tight, so hopefully there are no lifted-up areas that encourage the babies to pull them off. But if they do, no sweat. Just pull out that trusty hot glue gun!

She cut textures from materials she had around her house or begged off of other teachers--she didn't buy a thing!
From left to right, top to bottom.

Gold heavy tissue paper that crinkles when you touch it, pink shaggy piece from an old bathroom rug, brown shaggy fur from a repurposed stuffed animal, tin foil, burlap, gold shiny fabric, yellow mesh--maybe tulle?, white satin fabric with a pattern.

These are the textures she happened to have....anything would work! Raid your trash bin and I bet you could find plenty of great textures!

She then mounted the cardstock pieces on a sheet of black posterboard (love the contrast!!) and mounted on the wall at the babies' eye level, where they would be encouraged to stand/sit and touch the textures.

This is a free/very cheap activity that provides great opportunities for introducing touch vocabulary--describe what each piece feels like as your child touches it. Does it make a sound? Talk about this, too! Touch different body parts to the textures--elbow to rug, nose to satin, etc.

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this!!!!