What to do with all those boxes?

How I love Amazon Prime!  When you are a busy person, it simply makes sense to order online and have them miraculously appear on your doorstep a day or so later.  Are you amazed at the amount of packaging it sometimes takes to send just a paperback book?  I do feel a little guilty about this and try to add multiple items to each order.  However… I have another super fun activity for you and your children that I promise they will never tire of:It is called Box City.  Save the boxes!  Tape them up, put some weighted items in some of them and start a collection.  Take a look at the pictures from Tinker Hollow and let your children’s own imaginations and inquiries lead you. Toddlers love to build towers and of course, knock them down.  They love to throw the boxes and then gather them back up.  Three and four-year-old children love to create houses with bedrooms, pirate ships, and castles.  They will need your assistance cutting out windows or discovering how to create doors and windows.  The possibilities and fun are endless.  A roll of masking tape, some markers and paint will enhance their creations.  Help them to understand that it is o.k. To take their structures apart and then rebuild another time.  Take lots of pictures so that they can still keep the ‘evidence’ of their creations.  If you get a chance come visit our box city at the back of Tinker Hollow.  I included some pictures of how crazy it looked after our Santa Ana winds last week.After the winds…. It was crazy fun setting up each day for the children in the morning.  I tried to ‘set the stage’ each morning, but eventually, they are great to simply take charge and the goal is to let them use their imaginations and own inquiries to decide what to build and how to build it.  Trust me, it is hard when you are a Big Kid not to interfere with their ideas.Ready to Play!  I tried to organize by size and shape and to stage a new idea each day.  Eventually, the children simply take charge and that is exactly how I want it to happen.Painted garage with doghouse!Adding some privacy curtains.Using some of the left over “loose parts” to make door handlesMiss Margaret assisting the designer with bottle cap details for the cars:Our repair shop is very busy.