Do it Yourself Light Table & Shapes

Rosie and Jewel both love exploring with the light table.  We made ours for under $15.00 using Christmas lights, a large storage container, black construction paper, and wax paper.  It was so simple to put together, and we continually find fun ways for the girls to explore with it.  More details on how we put it together are at the end of the post.

The other day, I came across this post from Still Parenting filled with ideas of inexpensive materials and activities to create for the light table.  I absolutely loved the idea of making a set of transparent shapes using see through color dividers.  

To make a set of my own, I picked up a pack of transparent dividers from The Dollar Tree.  I traced the pieces from one of Rosie's puzzles to create the varying shapes.  I then cut out the shapes, and that was it!  These were so easy to make, and cost me $1.00.  How fantastic is that?

Rosie has had a lot of fun exploring with them.  They have been a great tool for teaching shapes.

One simple activity Rosie has enjoyed was Find the Shape.  Here, I had asked Rosie to point to the orange square.  Rosie is always so proud to show her knowledge of things, and really enjoyed this.

These shapes are also great for color recognition, and color mixing.  

Here, Rosie was creating purple by overlapping a pink rectangle and a blue circle.

Jewel is always so awestruck by the light itself lol.

I just love how delighted she is over the simplest of things!

These shapes have been a great addition to our DIY light table.  I am so pleased with them, I just picked up a couple more packs of transparent dividers to see what else we can make with them. 

A little more on how we made our light table:

I lined the bottom and sides of a clear plastic storage container like this one with black construction paper to hold in the light.  I used clear tape to secure the paper to the container.  Then I placed in a string of white LED Christmas lights we already had on hand.  Even if you need to purchase them they are only about $10.  I lined the inner top of the storage container with wax paper to protect the girls eyes while staring at the box.  Then I placed the lid on top, plugged in the lights, and the fun and exploration began :)

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