[we've gone giddy for...]

Our Little A is a budding mathematician (or at least that is what his very biased mother thinks) and we are more than encouraging it (hey, the arts are great and all, but any other way to make a living and we say go for it!). He's been obsessed with puzzles for quite some time and is especially fond of shapes and matching, etc. We have a lot of Montessori toys that he enjoys but I've had this idea for a geometric art puzzle that I wanted to try with him. Last summer (yes I've had this project idea stewing for far too long...seems to be the way things go around here) I went to Home Depot and had them cut a large sheet of 1/4 inch hardboard into five inch squares. Just this week I finally managed to paint them into colorful triangular shapes. I used acrylic craft paint and a sponge brush (don't use a bristle brush, it will just frustrate you).

As soon as Little A saw them, he went to town and I loved what he came up with. The amount of beautiful designs is truly endless. I have to confess that I'm having just as much fun with them as he is!

My original plan was to apply Velcro to the back of each square and then mount them onto the wall as a movable art piece (an idea I got from a friend, Amy Palmer, while living in Brooklyn. She had various shades of blue squares hung above her couch and it was true eye candy). However, once I saw the "out-of-the-box" designs that little A made, I knew these were better suited as a floor activity.

I might still hang them on the wall as a visually appealing home for them while they are not in use, but for now we are enjoying sliding them about, mixing and matching, this way and that. Talk about just the thing to do while cooped up indoors during this week of California rain storms.


*To get the sharp diagonal I took a ruler and made a pencil line from corner to corner before painting. From there I just eyed it (taking advantage of the clean line a sponge brush can give you) but if you are a perfectionist you might want to try taping it off.