Tissue box Dry erase board: Handwriting practice

CJ loves tracing/writing on the writing practice sheets. She asks me to keep dots so that she can join them to create alphabets, my mom practiced her like that. But she always needs a fresh clean paper for this activity. Lots of paper used and I hate printing alphabet practicing sheets, just to be thrown in recycle bin. So I created a dry erase board from tissue paper box. The dry erase board is easy to handle, can be carried in the handbag/kids backpack/activity bag.



For some reason, CJ is fascinated by the dry erase markers. May be smooth feel while you write or May be the erasing activity with tissue makes her happy! So we have a set of dry erase markers and I just make sure the markers are low odor and non-Toxic.

CJ is quiet impressed with her new writing board. This morning she was writing, erasing, writing, erasing, more writing and more erasing! Isn't it fun! I started loving it, an inexpensive, $0 writing board!

This winter we have been sick with cold quiet often and we have lot of empty tissue boxes in store. Yay! we are recycling/reusing all of them and participating in the tissue box challenge!

Materials used

Empty Tissue box
Glue stick/Modpodge
Scissors
Vinyl bags/any clear plastic sheet(Vinyl bags work better)
Scrap book paper(optional)
Dry erase marker
Old dress tag/Ribbon(Optional)
Handwriting practice sheet/Old Magazines

Steps Overview:

Take an empty Tissue box


Pull out the sealed edges as shown in the below pictures




Cut along the line as shown below


You will get two parts, part1 with the opening and part2 - rectangular piece


Remove the plastic found around the opening on the top of the tissue box. It just comes off when we pull with hand


Cut a rectangle from the Vinyl bag/clear plastic sheet with dimensions little bigger then the rectangular opening of the tissue box.


Using glue stick, fix the clear sheet to the inside rectangular opening of the part1 as shown below


I added few strips of paper to the corners of the vinyl to give a neat finish


Place part2 rectangle piece over the backside of the part1 as shown below


Fix part2 in place by gluing the tabs as shown below


The basic frame ready!




I felt CJ would be impressed if the frame had some extra colors. So I used an alphabets scrapbook paper.

I made the below template on the backside of the scrapbook paper. The dimensions may vary based on the tissue box you use


Cut the template and glue it to the frame. Add a dress tag/ribbon to one side of the frame as shown below. It can be used to hold a marker and comes handy for carry along in handbag.


Slip in a writing practice sheet as shown below and start tracing/writing


We used different paper to trace/write.

Writing Practice sheet:


Newspaper/Magazine cuttings:


Alphabet tracing:


CJ Writing/Tracing




Erasing fun


CJ doesn't like the dress tags in her dresses, so she didn't like the dress tag on the board too:-) She asked mommy why did you put the tag there and she pulled it out. So I added a fancy red ribbon in the place of the tag and glued a piece of yarn to hold the pen while writing.

Ready to write!


Ready for Carry along!


The frame/pouch can be used as an I-Spy pocket too!