DIY Horizontal Disk on a Dowel

Asssalamu alaikum,

This is a Montessori Horizontal disk on a dowel:

These are used to help infants practice hand-eye coordination. The infant has to focus on sliding the wooden disk onto the dowel and this is where the practice with hand-eye coordination comes into play. These also help infants and toddlers practice grasping with their fingers.

I seem to be in a DIY mood these days because I had the inclination to try to make one from materials commonly found in the home (well not the dowel perhaps but everything else insha'Allah...hehe)

The mistake I made was that I put the dowel too close to the top of the box. Alhamdulillah, the disks still balanced fine when they were put onto the dowel but I think it would look better if I'd put the dowel in the centre of the box. Lesson learned alhamdulillah.

You can make one of these at home using the following materials insha'Allah:

- sturdy small/medium cardboard box

- a dowel that is about 1/2 inch or larger (depending on your disks)

- brown paper bags with no writing or decorations

- hot glue gun

- glue stick or liquid glue

- an Xacto knife

- wooden disks

All I did was cover the box with the brown paper bags (with glue), cut two holes at opposite ends of the box, slide the dowel through and used a hot glue gun to keep the dowel from sliding around (I just put hot glue at each end point where the dowel protrudes from the box). Once dry it was ready to use alhamdulillah. It was quick, easy and inexpensive alhamdulillah.

Enjoy insha'Allah!

Photo credit: Nienhuis Montessori equipment for infants and toddlers.