Have you heard of it? It’s 10 cubes, from 1x1x1cm to 10x10x10cm, stacked on top of each other. It’s a sensorial material used to help children learn size discrimination, refine their sense of “smaller” and “larger” (and “smallest” and “largest”). Also, it’s PINK.

Naturally, being the DIY family we are, we couldn’t just shell out the minimum of $50 for one. We had to do it ourselves. Personally, making something is part of the experience for me. I feel more connected to the materials, and it seems like our daughter feels similarly. She got to watch the whole process of them being built, and just like when I make her a dress or shirt, she seems more excited about it then something that just came from the store (but that’s just us). Anyway, enough gibber jabber from me… you want to know how to build one yourself, right?

Right. So… it’s not that hard. But it might not be that easy either. We all have different skill sets so this might be way easy for you, or super challenging. It also requires tools. Saws mostly, and clamps.

I apologize for not having any photos. I thought “I should document my process” before I did it. And then I went down into my husbands dusty basement and got to it, and… didn’t take a single photo. Oops.

Tools I used: table saw, miter saw, clamps, wood glue, wood filler, paint ( I used Pink Dahlia from Martha Stewart’s craft paint line. Don’t go cheap, I tried and it takes SO many more layers. Spend an extra buck). A caliper to make sure things are accurate.  A meter stick (I got a metric yard stick at Walmart) is also helpful. Oh, and a sander of some sort.

Materials: I ended up using some scrap wood my husband brought home, but when I did the math I estimated that I needed 1 piece of 1×8 wood, and then 2 pieces of 1×6 wood. Honestly I would start with 1 piece and see how it goes. You can get your smaller pieces from the “leftovers” of previous cuts pretty easily.

(P.S. Making Montessori Ours has a GREAT cut list… I printed it out and stapled it right to the wall! )

1) Acquired wood. It would be SO SO easy if you could just go to Home Depot and buy a 4×4 piece of lumber and call it a day. Because, a 10cm is less than 4 inches right? Right. But a 4×4 is really more like, 3.5×3.5. So, what you have to do is get a 1×8.

2) Take your 1×8 and cut it using your miter saw (or any other saw capable of straight cross cuts) into pieces a little bit longer than 10cm (around 4.5 inches) (12 inches if you want to do brown stairs also).

3) Cut 5 or 6 of these cuts, then stack them on top of each other and see how tall they are in CM. Taller than 10cm? Excellent.

4) Grab your glue and your clamps. Put glue in between the layers. Make sure everything is very straight and even and neat, and then clamp it down, HARD. Double check that everything is really straight and neat.

5) Wait until it’s dry.  Unclamp. Using your caliper and your table saw fence (or fence for other saw capable of rip cuts — a band saw or circular saw should work), set your fence to exactly 10cm.

6) Run your wood through on all 4 long sides. I don’t speak woodworking, so hopefully that makes sense. Don’t cut the short ends yet, but make sure the long ends are all square and 10cm.

7) Using miter saw (or another cross cut type saw), square off the end of your wood. Just take the teeniest little end piece.

8) Get out your ruler and mark 10cm cut. Cut that on your miter saw.

9) Making the brown stairs too? Now mark and cut 20cm.

10) Repeat for remaining pieces.

11) Sand. Fill any gaps and nooks and crannies with wood filler. Let it dry. Sand it again.

12) Wipe it down. Let it dry. Paint.

13) Feel SUPER accomplished. Rejoiced in your handmade masterpiece. Love it!

For inspiration… here’s how mine came out  (I plan on painting a little more). We absolutely love it, and we are so excited to use it! If you make one, and my rudimentary instructions helped you at all, I would absolutely LOVE to see photos!