Before your recycle your cardboard, consider re-using it for play time and craft time!
Some of our favourite activites have come from random objects in the house. My son spend a long time when he was just wee rolling potatoes around the house, or piling them into his toy dump truck.
Cardboard boxes have long been joked to be a favourite among kids. I think a simple box is appealing to creative minds. They can be towers, or cars or doll beds.
Whether you want to create mini cities and road ways for toy cars, robots or some other creation, your recycling bin may be the key to your next afternoon of crafting.
Here are three of our favourite activities that I’ve posted on the blog that the kids have done. Before you put out your recycling this weekend, check to see if you can do any of these!
Have fun!
This was one of the most fun activities we did when we had a bunch of boxes lying around. Set up a sorting centre for letters and packages, plus place mail boxes in the house for drop points then send your little mail collectors out to get them. Use small granola bar or cracker boxes and wrap them in white paper for parcels. Don’t forget your stamps (create these with stickers!)
Encourage the kids to write (or draw) letters for special delivery to various mail boxes around the house. Have a mail letter carrier collect them and create a sorting station. Click the link above to read more!
Find stained T-shirts or ones that don’t really fit anymore and get creative by painting your own shirt! Use cardboard to make fun stencils – shapes or letters – and create!
Print a colouring page and have your child colour it. Print anything they want, but a single object would be easiest for younger sets.
Then, using construction paper or the back of a cereal box (this will be firmer and easier to piece together), glue the coloured picture on top. Cut in puzzle shapes and have fun putting it back together!
Oh, we love a good cardboard box, ’round here!
Endless fun!
No big box, especially, can be recycled before Thing 2 has added her artistic flair. They become houses for Things.. or stuffies.. or stores.. post offices.. offices in general.. hiding places.. galleries… computers.. TVs.. spaceships… you name it we’ve made it!
Have you read “Not a Box” by Antionette Portis. It’s terrific for wee ones!
Interesting suggestions! We usually use large boxes for Lego blocks storage. That’s also a good way to teach my children to sort out various pieces so that everything is ready for the next game! Recycling can wait, just for now!