Any time we come near an elevator my children begin debating over who will get to "press the buttons". To them, there is something alluring and almost magical about touching those numbers (I must admit - every time I watch the movie, "Elf" I find myself wishing I could press every button on the elevator number pad like Will Ferrell does).
Every closet in our house also doubles as an imaginary elevator - so I thought it would be fun to create a portable number pad for the elevator of the day (and also thought it would be a fun way to incorporate some number recognition/simple math into our play).
I wanted to use materials on hand (or something inexpensive if I didn't already have it) and also wanted the "buttons" on our number pad to be "press-able". What we ended up using: a piece of cardboard (cut out of a cereal box), googly eyes (for our press-able buttons), circular stickers (slightly smaller diameter then the googly eyes) and numerical stickers (optional).
I glued the googly eyes to the cardboard, adhered the numerical stickers to the circular stickers (you could also just draw the numbers on the stickers), then placed the circular stickers on top of the googly eyes.
The googly eyes doubled as the perfect elevator buttons - as they indent slightly when pressed and pop back to form when you let go.
Not only can you work on simple number recognition (press number 3, 4 etc.), but can also introduce/ show correlation between number words ("going to the 3rd or 4th floor means we need to press what number number/button").
This also provides a visual and tactile board to work on simple math problems (we're on floor number 3, we need to go up 2 floors - what number should we press to get there).
We had so much fun adding this simple creation to our imaginary play. 4th floor anyone?
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So clever, I love it!!!
Its a great idea. Will try this
thank you for this great idea, i made this last night and this morning all the little ones have loved playing with it, we tweaked it a bit using what we could find, heres a piccie of the finished creation facebook.com/amyandmimislittlebookwormsbookclub
thank you for such a great idea, made this yesterday and all the little ones this mornign have loved pressing the buttons and counting along, we tweaked it a bit but here it is facebook.com/amyandmimislittlebookwormsbookclub
Thanks, my little ones will love this!
This is such a great idea!
We have a special focus this week on maths and number posts at the Empty Your Archive link party, and I would absolutely love for you to link this up, Alice @ Mums Make Lists x
Super duper idea, was a big hit with my kids and they loved playing with it. Here's a link to their newest home made toy.
diapermum.blogspot.hk/2012/08/toddler-apporoved.html
Thanks a lot 🙂
Brilliant idea! My kids also love to play elevator. I must make this for them. Thank you for sharing!
I did this activity last night and it is a HIT! Thank you!! 😉
Ha Ha! This is the cutest!
this is brilliant! there's just something about buttons, isn't there? makes me think of the book that we did not too long ago, "press here"
This is so cute! I will have to remember this when I unpack my school crafts in the new house!
I love it! Will try it out 🙂
I like this idea! I have some numbers in our closet for the elevator but I might have to upgrade it. : )
could you laminate this to make it last longer or use contact clear cover.. great idea am going to try one.
Great idea. Real world mathematics! My kids will probably never get to experience an elevator (we live in a rural Aussie town) but you've got me thinking of a real world possibility that we might be able to use…I'll get back to you on that!
Brilliant! My teenage/twenty-something children still want to push the elevator buttons…lol.
You are amazing