Make Giant Building Blocks

Don’t take those old cardboard boxes out with the trash! Anything but waste, cardboard boxes can be taped back together, decorated, and then turned into jumbo-sized building blocks. These toys are enlarged for extra fun, so the options are endless! Your child can practice taking measurements, and then put her construction hat on to assemble imaginative castles. Here's how to get building.

What You Need:

• Cardboard boxes of various sizes (reuse leftover boxes from Christmas)
• Colorful paper (reuse wrapping paper or tissue paper)
• Tape
• Tape measure or ruler
• Marker

What You Do:

1. Encourage your child to tape all the cardboard boxes shut, so that there are no loose flaps.
2. For a little measurement practice, have her use a tape measure to find the lengths of all sides of the box and use a marker to write the measurements directly on the box.
3. Based on her measurements, help her measure and cut out colorful paper to decorate the sides of the box. Use the tape to secure the paper on the sides of the box.
4. After all the boxes are measured and papered, she can use her new set of building blocks to create anything she can imagine! Try building a fort or a giant animal. The more boxes she makes, the more she can build!