Teach Children the Joy of Reading
Let your child experience the joy of reading by expanding their imagination and increasing their language skills at an early age.
30/08/2020
If you want to expand your child's inquisitive imagination, introduce them to reading from an early age. Mothers know that their children enjoy a bedtime story and they love to hear the spoken language well before they learn how to read. If you nurture a love of reading in your child it will not only stimulate their imagination but also inspire a love for the written word and their understanding of the world around them.
Young children that enjoy reading have a far better understanding of what goes on around them. Reading also assists in language skills and being able to concentrate for lengthy periods, an asset when they start doing homework.
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One way to ensure your child loves reading is to make it even more interesting for them. This bus bookshelf turns reading into a fun activity that any young child will enjoy and while it might be more suitable for a little boy, we have included some other ideas for both girls and boys so that you can set up a fun reading corner.
There aren't many nice bookshelves out there, particularly ones that have a theme that can be tied into a styled or theme bedroom. If you want to coordinate furniture in a child's bedroom with a specific theme, you are going to have to make your accessories.
There are a variety of material options for making small projects like a bookshelf and you can choose between pine, plywood or SupaWood. You can buy pine as laminated pine shelving in different sizes or as PAR pine. While it works out more expensive than both plywood or SupaWood, you can buy the quantity you need without buying an entire sheet.
Plywood and SupaWood are bought by sheets size, so unless you have more projects you plan to make from the same sheet it can work out expensive. Additionally, most of the plywood you buy these days is pine plywood and it only has one good side. The other side can be a bit rough and not very attractive - not something you want to use for a project that will be out on display. So keep this in mind.
YOU WILL NEED:
Pine, plywood or SupaWood
Wood glue
Painter's tape
Pocket-hole jig OR Pneumatic Nailer OR hammer and panel pins
Rust-Oleum spray paint in gloss red, black and white
TOOLS:
Jigsaw for cutting out the shaped sides and curves on top of the front and back
Rust-Oleum spray paint, gloss red, white and black
Multi or Orbital sander and 180-grit sanding pads
Tape measure and pencil
HERE'S HOW:
1. Draw out a sketch for the size of the bookshelf you want to make. In this example we recommend that the bed of the bus be approximately 300mm in length and 150mm in width, however, you can adjust this slightly to shorten or lengthen. The ends will be 150mm in width and 200mm in height. The section that contains the wheels will be the same length as the bed (300mm) and 100mm in height.
2. Draw curves on the top of the end sections as shown in the images above. Also, cut out where the wheels are.
3. Apply wood glue to the sections being joined together and then either use a pocket-hole jig, pneumatic nailer or hammer and panel pins to join all the pieces.
4. Sand even and smooth before painting and wipe clean to remove any traces of dust.
We have recommended Rust-Oleum Gloss spray paint for this project, just because it gives such a professional finish and is easy to apply. Start with the red base and leave this to dry overnight before masking off the other areas for painting white and black.
MORE CHILDREN'S BOOKSHELF IDEAS
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