Thanks to Brother for sponsoring this post and providing us crafters with a new tool for our trade!

Every parent knows that long car rides, waiting rooms, and delayed flights can be torture on the nerves. It’s easy to hand over a digital device these days, but here’s a creative, unplugged idea to keep their brains active! Switch out the smartphone for a smart-toy and get your kids excited about writing. To make a portable update of this fridge classic, fill a metal, mint tin with DIY poetry magnets. When your little poets put together sentences, they’ll have so much fun they won’t realize they’re learning. Who knows…maybe you can slip in a vocab word or two!

It literally couldn’t be easier to make this poetry-on-the-go set with the help of the P-touch Embellish Ribbon and Tape Printer. The best part? It’s completely customizable—your kids can include their names, the name of their school, favorite animals, foods, activities—whatever they want! With 9 patterned tapes, and more than 10 solid colors, plus 14 fonts and over 400 symbols, you can mix and match in a million ways.

What you’ll need:

• metal mint tin
• contact paper
• marker
• scissors
• magnetic sheets
• P-touch Embellish
• P-touch Embellish tapes in a variety of patterns and colors (we used berry pink, lime green, mint chevron, yellow with white stars, blue and pink diagonal, pastel blue, pastel purple, and pink hearts)

Make it!

1. Trace the top of the mint tin on the back of the contact paper and cut out. Then, carefully peel and press contact paper to the tin top and trim off any excess.

2. Write down a list of words you want to turn into magnets, making sure not to forget pronouns, prepositions, and articles! Have fun trading out tapes and experimenting with different fonts, sizes, and symbols. Make sure to print out names of your kids, friends, and family so your kids can customize their poetry.

3. Trim words and stick them to magnetic sheets. (If you have adhesive sheets pull back the paper first for a doubly strong bond.) Cut out words to create individual magnets.

4. Store magnets inside the tin and have fun sticking sentences all over!

February 23, 2018| Activities, ad, Age, Early Elementary, Everyday Crafts, Grown-Up, Older Elementary, Preschool, Tween to Teen, Unplugged Time