It is my sincerest privilege to share this post along with 20+ fabulous bloggers who have collaborated together to present this creative challenge: creative ideas to do with a cardboard box.  This terrific blog linky was put together by the tireless efforts and leadership of Tinkerlab in honor of her 1 year anniversary.  Congratulations to Tinkerlab!

As I have mentioned before, I am really not all that creative so coming up with a box idea left me at a loss…

I brought these four big boxes home from preschool thinking I might be able to create something with them but they sat in my studio for two days while I still struggled with an idea.  So I finally sat down and started breaking them down and cutting off all the flaps until I ended up with them all in pieces…

After I cut the boxes apart, I asked my little friend Tristan, who was over playing in the sensory table, if he would like to play with the pieces and play he did!

He started off thinking small and then realized that he could use all the pieces and ended up building and designing just like a little carpenter…

Tristan was particularly concerned with making every thing “square” as he would put it….

I am not sure what he meant exactly but I think he wanted straight edges to match up with straight edge…

Once he had all his walls in place, Tristan began laying the flooring down…

Then he decided he wanted his walls taller. It took a bit of problem solving for Tristan to figure out how to get the walls taller…

He eventually discovered that if he stood some of the piece in between the boxes where they overlapped, the walls would stay standing…

Soon Tristan had his building designed to his personal satisfaction…

After all that work it was time to take a little rest and reflect on a job well done…

Here is another idea for what could be done with these boxes from Play Create Explore. Perhaps we will save the pieces for another day of building!

Be sure to check out each of the amazing bloggers below that are participating in this fun and innovative day of boxes!

If you have a box post you would like to share – head on over to Child Central Station and add you linky there!

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My nephew Wy loves to kick balls, push cars, and color with markers but there is one thing that he really doesn’t seem to like….

Wy doesn’t like to paint.

When Wy gets a little paint on his hands, he stops in his tracks and just stares like it is a disease. But unfortunately for Wy, I love to paint and so I have been trying to find inventive ways to get Wy exposed to painting little by little. I am hoping to get him over his paint phobia.

The plan evolved after a trip to McDonald’s where we got this really cool ball in our Happy Meal. The numbers and shapes on the ball stick out and I thought we could go home and try painting with the ball but knowing Wy won’t want paint on his hands – we invented kick box painting instead…

We started by putting three drops of paint on a piece of plain white paper.

Then we put the paint and the paper in a box with a lid.

Wy picked up the box and shook it…

and then he decided to push the box around the room…

And then he decided to kick the box. I have never seen a kid get so much exercise from a painting activity!

And when Wy was all finished, we opened the box to see the results.

Our Kick Ball Masterpiece!

Turn a box into more toddler fun!

My plan was to decorate this box and make it really cool like this one here.

But as much as I liked the idea of making a cool oven

Wy  had other plans.

Wy was all about the play!

In and Out went Wy

And

Open and Shut went the “doors”

Since the doors were what Wy loved most…

we cut a few doors and windows out.

And played a little peek-a-boo!

While Wy climbed in and out of the box, I began to decorate the outside…

And then Wy began to undecorate!

So the box remained just a box for Wy to play with.

“knock-knock” is any body home?

What value was this play experience?

• Large Motor: Crawling

• Fine Motor: Opening and shutting the doors

• Communication Skills: “Peek-a-boo” and “Is anybody home?”

• Vocabulary: In – Out, Open-Shut, knock-knock

• Imagination: A box can be a house, an oven, a cave, or a place to hide.