Introduction: DIY Kids Whiteboard With Side Opening

About: I crochet and do crafts. Oh and I also work full time and have a family to take care of. I'm on here because this site is so cool and easy to post to. You can also check me out on Ravelry: http://www.ravel…
One of my latest creations for my children were these easy, relatively inexpensive and portable whiteboards.

What kids don't LOVE whiteboards? 
It's like an etch-a-sketch (a toy from back in my day) but cooler because you can actually control the drawing device where you want it to go.

The primary purpose for making one of these boards was so that my three-year old daughter could practice writing her name.  The side-opening allows me to slip in lined paper with her name on it, and she is able to write on the sheet protector to trace over her name.  As she grows, I can slip in other pieces of paper with other words for her to practice.

As you can see from the photos, I made three (3) of these easy little guys, one for each of my kiddos, because, you know, they would fight over them if they each didn't have their own. 
One of those projects where I already had all of the materials, I hope you can use this photo instructable to make your own writing or drawing tablets.

Materials (To Make One):
  • Cardboard - with the thickness of a recycled cereal box
  • 8-1/2 inch x 11 inch Sheet Protector (the ones I had were non-glare, and they worked fine)
  • Two (2) to three (3) white sheets of 8-1/2" x 11" paper
  • Duct Tape (I used decorated rolls by the Duck Tape Brand)
  • Other items used: Box Cutter, self-healing mat or additional piece of cardboard to cut the cereal box on, Scissors, and Dry Erase Marker

To Create:
  • Cut the recycled cereal box so that the edge of the cardboard is not longer than an 8-1/2 x 11 inch size of paper.  As I was adding a border with the duct tape, I was not concerned with getting the cardboard exactly the size of the sheet of paper.  If that is important to you, you can use a larger sized cereal box than the one I show, and cut the cardboard so that it fits snugly into the sheet protector.
  • I had to place two sheets of white copy paper over the printed side of the cereal box so that the print was no longer visible and one sheet of paper over the opposite side.
  • Recall that my purpose was to be able to pull paper in and out of the sheet protector, so when I placed the duct tape border, I placed the duct tape at the edge of the sheet protectors opening.
  • On the other three sides of the whiteboard, I placed half of the width of the duct tape on the plastic and matched the opposite side up to make the border.  (See the photo.)
  • The last thing I did was trim any edges that were not aligned and gave my kids his or her own dry erase marker.

Other Notes:
Did you know you can pretty much wipe off dry erase marker off of duck tape?  Yeah, I didn't know either until I made these!

The first time I made these, the kids sat for at least 15-minutes just using their imaginations, drawing and wiping off.  FIFTEEN MINUTES!  That's a lot of time to me in my mommy world to keep three kids busy!

So the last bit of info is that in my case I purchased the lined paper from the dollar store and it was not "standard" 8-1/2 x 11-inch size.  I want my daughter to think she is having fun writing her name, so being able to pull out the lined paper makes her feel like she has some control over having her whiteboard for a fun use and for me to know that it is functional too.  I could easily cut the paper to size and keep it inside the sheet protector if needed.

I also wanted to give a shout out to those 'ible creators who have thought of very similar ideas:
drac5290 changeable character template whiteboard
Lyron Portable Whiteboard for $1
artaxerxes2 Low Cost Lettersize Office Whiteboard

Thanks for looking!
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