Trace the shapes of the metal insets on each matboard. Create one of each: parallelogram, octagon, square, trapezoid, square, rectangle, hexagon, triangle, ellipsoid and circle. These will form your metal insets, which look like puzzle pieces and fit in hollowed corresponding shapes. They can be matched or used to trace figures. They teach circular shapes and straight edge shapes, which prepare the child for writing letters.
Carve the five curvilinear forms and the five straight angle forms out of each matboard using your cutter. Smooth out your pieces with sand paper.
Paint gesso over the matboards and let them air dry. The gesso has three advantages: first, it makes the matboards stay straight; second, it confers extra strength to the matboards for durability; third, it prevents the soaking of the paint inside the support material.
Paint the inside pieces blue and the outer boards pink. Let dry.
Glue one woodcraft knob on each one of the insets.
Discard the glass and the backings from each of the 10 picture frames. Keep only the frames. Dressing frames are Montessori toys designed to teach the children how to dress independently.
Choose one piece of baby clothing for each type of fastener: zippers, laces, scratches, snaps, buckles, lacing, bow ties and chrome closures.
Stretch and staple 10 baby clothes to the back of the frames.
Open two of the 18 film canisters and put an equal amount of beans in both of them. Make sure you fill only the bottom part of the canisters so children hear the sound clearly when they shake the bottles. Sound bottles are used to help children discriminate between sounds and build concentration and attention by matching bottles.
Seal the canisters with tacky glue. Put a colored dot at the bottom of each canister for self-check.
Pick two more canisters. Fill the bottom part of both new canisters with salt. Stick two dots of different colors on both canisters' bottoms.
Continue filling up canisters in pairs with pebbles, water, peas, pennies, sand, noodles and coffee beans.
Seal the bottles well.