This week in the Burrow we have made the most out of some left over cardboard boxes.
On Monday morning we came into work and found lots of left over cardboard boxes from some work that had been done at the weekend. For lots of people these boxes would have been a nuisance….but for early years practitioners cardboard boxes have endless possibilities!
With some of our boxes Soraya decided to make a house, which you may have had to climb over at some point during this week. We used three large boxes, two as the walls, and one propped on top to be the roof, and then a long, thin box to keep the structure up. The children had lots of fun playing inside the house and decided it needed some decoration so we had lots of mark making tools outside to decorate the house. The house gave us lots of opportunities for communication and language, talking about reaching up high and stretching to draw all over the boxes. One child stretched up to reach the roof and said “Not tall!” as he couldn’t reach, showing that he had some understanding of the concept of size. We then moved soft blocks into the house so that everyone could reach. Mark making in different forms can often encourage children who would not normally sit at a table and choose to draw.
We also found the cardboard useful for our story making project and the children enjoyed lying on the floor and mark making, drawing lots of Goldilocks and the three bears pictures.
The long thin, rectangle boxes that we had were also used for construction and the children enjoyed stacking them up into a pyramid and moving them around. One group of boys decided that the boxes were sausages, and all picked up one each and pretended to cook them!!
Once we had finished playing with the boxes we then flattened them out and had some painting out under the arch and let the children get creative!
It just goes to show that cardboard boxes are never just cardboard boxes to children and their imaginations can turn them into anything! Next time you think of throwing one away just think, that could be entertainment for your children for hours!
Thanks for Reading!
Chynna