Indoor Play Board - Part Two - Lay Out / Roads / Ponds

Once you have your board in place and rough sanded, decide what you will have on the board. Our board has one main road, which goes the length of the board, a castle, a log cabin, a farm animal pen, a pond with a footbridge, and a gazebo. You can see the photos I have attached.

You don't have to be an engineer here, just remember, it is supposed to be fun! I started out by just drawing, with a pencil, an outline where I wanted to place each area on the board. Once I had decided where everything was going to go, I drew in the road. The road is the first thing you will "build" on the board.

Road

1 pail of sand

1 bag of tiny brown gravel (aquarium)

Unlimited supply of Elmer's glue

To build our road, we went out to the sand box and dug out a pail of sand. You can also buy clean sand at Home depot or Lowe's if you don't have any clean sand available. Any kind of dirt will work, but I wanted something I knew was clean since it would be inside. Working in 12-18" long sections of your road outline, liberally spread the Elmer's glue. Kids love to do this part, because it works better if you use your hands. Once the glue is spread, scatter the gravel sparsely. You want it to end up looking like rocks on the road, so don't do it too heavily. Once you have the gravel down, fill in the road with the clean, dry sand you brought inside. Using clean, dry hands, press down evenly on the sand and gravel just to make sure that it is in the glue. Move on the next section. Do this until you have filled in all of the roads.

Pond

1 bag broken glass-tumbled, blue

1 piece foil wrapping paper, blue

Bridge- aquarium decoration

Plastic ducks or swans-if desired

Unlimited supply of Elmer's glue

This was my Grandson's favorite part, and he did this one all by himself. We bought the tumbled glass at the Dollar Tree for $1.Draw an outline of the pond, and what shape you want, but this time, draw with marker on the back side of the foil paper, and cut it out. If you prefer, you can cut freely rather than taking time to draw it. He wanted a bridge over his pond for his guys to walk over, so we bought one from Wal-Mart in the pet department! After searching everywhere for the right one, we found it in the aquarium decorations! Be sure and think about the bridge when cutting out the pond.

Once you have the pond cut out, spread the Elmer's glue liberally on the back side of the foil, and press into place firmly on the board. Once you have the foil on the board, blue side up; spread more glue, on the blue side of the foil. Once you have the foil ready, begin placing the glass pieces on the foil. This is much like putting together a puzzle as all of the pieces are different shapes and it must cover the whole area. The blue foil will reflect through the glass pieces and it actually looks like water!

We also bought a package of farm animals (which we will use later) and took the ducks out. We glued one duck in the water as we were placing the glass pieces, and the rest of the family on the grass by the pond.

Using the same procedure, we made a small watering hole in the area we designated for the farm animal pen.

If you would like more photos, leave a comment below and I will be happy to email photos to you

To continue click here: Indoor Play Board - Part Three - Foliage

Click here to go to: Indoor Play Board - Part Four - Buildings/Castle

Click here to go to: Indoor Play Board - Part Five - Buildings/Log Cabin