This activity was inspired by the article from PsyBlog – Free Play: Simple Items More Fun For Children.
Movable/recycled materials are suggested to stimulate creativity and diversity to children’s play and provide active play experiences by facilitating pushing, pulling and lifting and the construction of structures (e.g. cubby houses, rockets, ships) whilst engaging in social interaction and problem-solving. – Hyndman et al., 2014
Lucky this mother is a hoarder… I dug out our hoard of empty cereal boxes and old toy boxes and tapped them back up.
Then I showed G1 this picture from Ms Nancy’s Nook for inspiration…
And off to work he went…
What was supposed to be a lesson in creativity and imagination took an interesting turn when the wall he was trying to build fell down. He ended up learning about physics and the effects of gravity on a vertical structure.
This was the end result:
He cheated a little and added his old foldable tent-house inside so he wouldn’t have to build a door.
It was a good solo effort since G2 abandoned him and I resisted the urge to jump in and take over.
Update: Okay, so I couldn’t resist and I had to make a contribution…
We ran out of boxes so I had to use a painting to make up part of the wall…
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