My dad is a retired landscape architect and when we were kids, his drafting table was smack dab in the middle of our dining room. It had a couch next to it, so there were many nights that I would crawl up on that couch in my pajamas and watch him work. He had the neatest set of markers and an electric eraser. I loved that electric eraser. I can still remember how it whirred so fast in my hand, how it smelled and how careful I had to be not to erase a hole right through my paper. Oh the power!
Fast forward 35 years, and that electric eraser is now in my home. And now my kids are frothing at the mouth to get their hands on it.
So I decided to combine their love of that electric eraser and my love for very simple projects. Especially simple projects that can be made into a learning activity. For my 4-year old, I drew (in pencil) different letters of the alphabet scattered on a sheet of typing paper. I gave him the eraser and asked him to erase an “R”. Once he erased it, I picked a different letter for him to erase until the whole sheet was blank. For my almost 7-year old, I drew large numbers. So I asked him to “erase the number 232” then “erase the number 1,000” and so on until he had erased all of the numbers on his sheet.
This can also be done just as easy with a plain pencil and eraser. I had one handy and the kids rotated back and forth between using the electric eraser and the plain pencil eraser.
Incredibly easy. Fun and educational, too. Rainbow finger nail polish optional!
Photography by Rebecca Sanabria.
