Outdoor Fun for later Rain Day Fun: Box Challenge

Kids love boxes. They spark their imagination and get them to make them into something else. Give your kids a box and challenge them- what can you make this into? Watch puppet theatres, castles, caves (“…for hibernating of course Mom!”) emerge. If your kids need a bit of prompting, we suggested a book…

Materials

Various sizes of boxes
Paint
Brushes (or other tools)
Plastic containers
“Not a Box” (by Antoinette Portis)
Smock or play clothes

Directions

Save boxes or request some from a local company or grocer. Think of an idea for what to make your boxes into (or several if each child wants to do their own thing).

Put on a smock or play clothes (that you don’t mind paint getting on).

Pick a sunny day to go outside on your back lawn. Put paint in various colours into the containers and encourage children to create their vision. We wanted to make a castle after using the boxes for a hibernation den, so we mixed white with a little bit of black to create grey, as well as using silver. We then used a sponge to make bricks, leaving space in between and staggering the rows to give the appearance of mortar in between.

We allowed them to dry overnight and then brought them into the playroom for rainy day fun, adding other materials such as toys to enhance the play.

A good friend of our did this with a large refrigerator box and made a boat that gave her children months of fun imaginative play and our aunt made us a puppet theatre from a refrigerator box that we loved as children. What can you think of? What to share it? We love to see your creations.