Nothing is more amusing than seeing the growth of your little ones throughout the year. You cannot control time, but you can always cherish your child’s milestone, like doing creative ways of recording and tracking your child’s height and weight progression. Keeping track of how much your child has grown from year to year using a growth chart is a great way to treasure their childhood, and you will be amazed at how small your baby was at one time. Read on to know how to make a growth chart.
Purpose of a Growth Chart
Growth charts are used to record your child’s height, weight, and head size. It helps both you and your health care provider follow your child’s growth rate as it also provides an early warning if your child has a medical problem. A growth chart measures weight in pounds or kilograms, height, and head circumference. Each of your child’s measurements is placed on the growth chart.
These measurements can also be used to compare the standard range for children of the same gender and age. A child’s body mass index or BMI can be calculated at age two. Their height and weight are used to figure out the BMI, and a BMI measurement can be used to estimate your child’s body fat. You will appreciate it value more once you know how to make a growth chart and eventually use it.
Useful Guide to Making a Growth Chart
A growth chart is easily made using affordable materials and following simple and easy steps on how to make a growth chart. You express your creativity in tracking your child’s growth with your DIY growth chart. To start with, you will need the following materials:
- 1x6x6 wood board
- Sandpaper
- Ruler
- Pencil
- Polyacrylic sealer
- Paintbrush
- Wood stain
- Printed Numbers 1-6
- Paint pen or Sharpie
Growth Chart Directions:
- After gathering all the materials needed, the first thing you should do is brush your desired wood stain onto your board. It’s your choice on how dark you want your ruler or chart to be. Wipe off the stain using a towel after five minutes, or longer if you want it darker.
- Once the stain has dried out, use the sandpaper for sanding the board down a little and making it smoother.
- Next, make the board look like a ruler using a pencil. Start at the very bottom and measure up and mark a line at every inch. You also have to make sure that you measure the width of the actual ruler for accuracy purposes.
- Next, use a thin paint pen or a Sharpie and go back over your pencil lines.
- Print out ruler numbers and place the numbers to the chart. Then, cut them apart and rub a pencil all over the back. You have to make sure that each number is completely covered.
- Turn the number back over and place it next to the second ¼-inch mark up from the bottom of the growth chart. To trace the number, use a pen or pencil.
- Now, you’re left with a faint pencil outline of the number on the wood. This time, use your paint pen or Sharpie to color the numbers.
- Continue working with all the numbers, and once the paint or Sharpie gets dry, you may cover with a clear polyacrylic sealer for some protection.
- You can also add a sawtooth hanger on the back of your DIY growth chart for hanging. You could also add customized designs to make it more personalized because it also serves as a beautiful decorative.
After making your growth chart, you can already put it to use. Learning how to make a growth chart is so much fun and fulfilling. It is best to use a permanent marker to make a dash indicating your child’s height at specific milestones throughout their life and indicate the date. Also, make sure you include their height at birth as the first mark. Find out more about mementos.
Conclusion
Making a growth chart is a lovely project. You will love how functional it is. Now is the best time to start marking your child’s progress as she gets bigger and bigger. Treasure your kid’s important milestones by recording them in the growth chart. It gives special memories to both you and your child. You will love the idea of having a visual representation of your kid’s growth in the home, and knowing how to make a growth chart is the first thing to do to get you started.