Showing posts with label things to do with cardboard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label things to do with cardboard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label things to do with cardboard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label things to do with cardboard. Show all posts

Summer Messy Play Activities for Preschoolers

Fun In The Sun - 6 Tips For Creating A Mud Kitchen For Your Kids


Kids love mud! And as dirty as they may get, it’s time to advocate messy play so they can learn new skills the fun way. The fastest and easiest way to encourage your kids to get outdoors is to build them a mud kitchen.They'll be tripping over each other to get outside

Building your own mud kitchen is a creative, cost-effective way of enabling messy play for your kids while saving money on an expensive play kitchen

You can build your mud kitchen in your own way, and in the end, your kids will have the perfect environment in which to get their hands dirty anytime.


This post contains Amazon affiliate links for your convenience.


Summer Messy Play Activities for Preschoolers

Photo: Jelleke Vanooteghem/Unsplash


Six tips to create your own mud kitchen


  1. Use What You’ve Got

Poke around your garage and see what you can recycle to save money on your mud kitchen. You can use wood, recycled pallets, and old timber for the construction. Old cookware and bakeware, utensils, and decorations can also be used to finish out the kitchen,

Remember, the idea is to ignite your child’s imagination, so your DIY mud kitchen doesn’t need to resemble a brand-new toy kitchen set. 


  1. Stove Tops Add to The Fun

While it’s great to leave some things up to the imagination, it’s a good idea to make your play kitchen resemble a real kitchen by creating a stove top. You can paint the burners on a piece of timber or wood, and you can even add broken or thrifted appliances to your outdoor kitchen to enhance its appearance. You can also use good, old cardboard to create a play stove.


  1. Bake Mud Cakes

The fun part of having a mud kitchen is that your kids get to play with mud and get as dirty as they want. All you need to make mud cakes is some sand or soil and water. You can use old cookware and bake ware to contain them and shape them like cakes and cupcakes.

Parents can get involved by showing kids how to create funky-shaped cookies with cookie cutters and molds or add colored pasta to the mud for added texture. This kind of sensory play is an important part of childhood development, but above all, it’s a whole lot of fun.


Pistachio Pudding Play Dough


  1. Set the Table

A mud kitchen is a fun way to teach your child table manners. Guide your preschoolers through setting a table and laying out the dishes. Show them the way to arrange cutlery and allow your children to bring some garden leaves to create napkins for a rustic table setting.


  1. Add a Sink

Since you’ve introduced messy play to your preschoolers with colored pasta and mud cakes, it’s a good idea to take care of the cleanup. The most logical way to do this is to add a sink to your mud kitchen! To create your sink, use a silver or grey bucket and fill it with water or a big flower put with the bottom plugged works nicely too.

Add a hose in the bucket so that there’s an accessible faucet. This is a great way to teach children how to clean up after themselves. Add some dish washing liquid and a sponge so you can wash all the cookware the kids used before bringing it back into the house!


How to Make your own Dish Washing Soap


  1. Dress For The Occasion

Every chef needs a chef’s hat and apron, so make sure to get these for your child. They will love it! Plus, the apron will offer some protection from mud splatter while playing. Rubber boots are a good idea too. Preschool age kids and toddlers love to wear galoshes!


How to Make your own Chef Hat

 

Have fun with your kiddos and their mud kitchen. You may want to wear some rubber boots yourself! Encourage your children to enjoy free and imaginative play, and you can bet they’ll learn tons of kitchen tricks in the process. Pretend play is the best way to learn!


Recommended Reading:

Pretend Play and Play Date Ideas from Adventures of Kids Creative Chaos

Fun Books about Galoshes from Amazon




4 Holiday Toilet Paper Roll Crafts

4 Cardboard Tube Crafts for the Holidays

Whether you use a paper towel roll, wrapping paper roll, or toilet tube, these cute cardboard tube crafts for the holidays are easy to make. We made 4 fun holiday toilet paper roll crafts with bits and bobbles from cardboard rolls. Scroll down to see our Thanksgiving Turkey, Christmas Reindeer, Snowman, and Little Puppy. Enjoy!

This post contains affiliate links.

Cute Cardboard Tube Crafts
Cute Cardboard Tube Crafts.

1. Toilet Paper Roll Turkey


We used cardbboard paper towel rolls and toilet paper tubes to make these little creatures. They are skinnier than most, because we cut a 1" strip out of each roll and then hot glued the cardboard back together. Each holiday creature is cut at a different height, so they can be displayed in an attractive centerpiece for the holidays.

Toilet Paper Roll Crafts Thanksgiving Turkey
Toilet Paper Roll Crafts Thanksgiving Turkey.






If you want to make Cardboard Tube Crafts for Thanksgiving, purchase some felt leaves. We found a Thanksgiving garland kit on clearance and used the pieces to make turkey feathers. An autumn pack of pipecleaners. pom poms, and felt bits were used for his beak and head.

To attach the head, it is best to use hot glue. Place a bead of glue around the top of the cardboard tube and then press and hold the pom pom down until the glue sets.

If you want to paint your tube, do that before you begin decorating it. We like the natural look of of the cardboard roll.


2. Cardboard Tube Puppy



make a cardboard roll puppy
Cut a 2" section of cardboard roll to make a little puppy.



Mini Cardboard Tube Creatures.




3. Cardboard Paper towel Roll Snowman Craft


cardboard tube snowman
Use a vegetable skewer to make hands
for your cardboard toilet roll snowman.


Cardboard Toilet Roll Snowman Craft with Scarf
Twist two pipecleaners together to make a scarf for your snowman.
We glued two cottonballs together to make  his head.

4. Reindeer Toilet Roll Craft


toilet roll reindeer craft
Wrap pipecleaners around your finger or a pencil
to make spiral antlers for the cardboard reindeer.

More Cardboard Roll Crafts for Thanksgiving

Easy Cardboard Toilet Tube Turkeys
Mayhem designed her own Easy Cardboard Toilet Tube Turkeys.

Cut 1/4" strips approximately 3" down the toilet paper roll to make the turkey feathers. Then, bend 1 strip down folding the end up to attach the turkey's head. Cut two orange strips and glue inside the tube to form legs. Now, you have a shelf sitter turkey for Thanksgiving.

Share your ideas with us in the comments.


Recommended:


Paint with Cardboard Tubes

The Night Before Thanksgiving

Holiday Salt Dough Ornaments

Make an Envelope Barn and Toilet Roll Silo

Felt Leaves

Cardboard Toilet Tube Rocket for New Years

Make a Call of Duty Black Ops Medal Afterschool Activity

 Make your own Black Ops Call of Duty Style Medal


Call of Duty Black Ops and Ghosts are so popular with teens and their gaming Dads too. We've been posting  a ton of Call of Duty birthday party activity themes or after-school boredom busters. Enjoy!

I know, how can you get bored when you have your video games to play?

Well, sometimes you mess up and lose your tech time. Grounded. Don't leave your soldiers all alone. Remember when you used to get dressed up and play make believe? Yep. Now they call it role-playing, and it is cool to be a nerd.


Get your own Official Black Ops Medal

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Make your own Call of Duty Medal.



We made our look-alike (shh, I know it's a stretch, don't hurt my feelings!) medal with recycled cardboard from a cereal box, blue felt, aluminum foil, some Sharpies, and Tacky Glue.



Official Call of Duty Black Ops Prestige Medal.
Official Call of Duty Black Ops Prestige Medal.


How to Make a Call of Duty Medal


We took the image above, printed it out in black and white and then traced it to make a template. It's not an exact match, but it makes a fun Call of Duty activity for kids.

After, we cut out our images, we traced them onto the cardboard. There are 5 separate cardboard pieces making up the medal.

Next, we covered each piece with foil by wrapping the cardboard cut out and rubbing over it with fingers to reveal where to make the cuts. No need to glue the foil down, just wrap the edges so they fold over the back.

Then, we stacked each piece as pictured and glued them down with tacky glue.

Take a break, let it dry. Later, we took the Sharpie and colored the bottom layer. We used brown, but gold looks best. Then, we drew the features of the skull.

Finally, we cut the felt in an odd bow tie, folded it in half, glued it at the top, and then to the wings at the top of our cardboard medal.

If you make a Call of Duty template pattern stencil (see what I did there? That's weird, right?), and cut the pieces out prior to the party, it makes a quick, fun activity for a boys' birthday party.

Need a stencil pattern template - whatever you want to call it, you can find it here as a FREE PRINTABLE CALL OF DUTY pdf on our Mediafire page. If the link isn't clickable, I haven't scanned it in yet. Hold on. I'm getting to it.



Recommended Reading:


Call of Duty: Ghosts Signature Series Strategy Guide 

Free Printable Coloring Pages inspired by Call of Duty

Call of Duty Art Lesson

Army Birthday Party with Call of Duty Theme