"With nothing more than a little imagination, those boxes can be transformed into forts or houses, spaceships or submarines, castles or caves. Inside a big cardboard box, a child is transported to a world of his or her own, one where anything is possible"
- The Museum of Play
I always think about the Spongebob episode where Spongebob and Patrick order a TV just for the box and annoy Squidward with their antics and impressively vivid imaginations. That's really what a big cardboard box feels like to a kid!
All of this to say, cardboard boxes are an incredible material for play. In 2016, I helped facilitate a big cardboard build in the Maker's studio at the Science Center of Iowa where I worked as a Maker-in-Residence. 10 years later, I still think about this experience often. It was magical to see the way visitors transformed our space into a cardboard city with tunnels, towers, walls, and secret passageways.
Two young people standing inside of a cardboard construction, large cardboard boxes create walls, tunnels, and tubes that tower over the young people.
Recently, I finally got around to facilitating some larger scale cardboard building activities in a couple of different Makerspace settings.
I want to share some of my favorite moments, stories, and details from these experiences:
A wonderful librarian and I offered a "Toddler Tinker Storytime" program at the NoBo Library. We paired Makerspace activities with toddler storytime once per month. One month, we paired "The Artist" by Ed Vere with an activity where toddlers could simply color and decorate a cardboard cityscape that was designed to look like the cities in the book.
The book has a great message. It's all about creative confidence, finding your artistic voice, and having the courage to express yourself.
I specifically made these cardboard structures so that a toddler could feel like they were at the same scale as the dinosaur in the book, easily able to reach the sides and tops of buildings to paint colorful murals.
Having pre-built cardboard structures was appropriate for this age group. They were highly engaged with decorating and coloring. I found that washable paint sticks were a great material choice for this. They're not messy, they're vivid and bright on the cardboard, and they're easy for little hands to hold. I also offered some large dot markers which were similarly accessible for toddlers.
This activity was such a hit! One family came back and told us that they'd recreated the activity for a gathering at home and their little ones loved it.
Researching is honestly half of the fun of planning new activities for me. Here's a preview of my Freeform board where I collected pictures, links, artists, tools, etc. to inspire my cardboard city activities.
I will try to update this page later with a list of links from this board.
In my Makerspace at CSU Spur, I've facilitated a cardboard fort/city/castle building activity a couple of times. It's a good passive activity (for me), meaning that I don't have to do a ton of facilitation for folks to enjoy it and have a great creative experience.
I usually prep the space by propping up a couple of bigger, loosely taped together boxes in the building area, and by making sure that there's a good cardboard supply nearby:
I made some cardboard techniques posters to offer some connection inspiration, but honestly most folks just went for the tape!
I laid out safe cardboard cutters (klever kutters, ceramic safety cutters, MakeDo tools), tape, string, and washable paint markers.
I really like this paper packaging tape for cardboard builds. It blends in nicely, is easy to tear, and is quite durable:
My favorite part is seeing how the cardboard build grows, evolves, and changes over time. Drawstring bridges appear, signage that says "entrance" "Start here" gets added, the cardboard walls are covered in a delightful mix of paint stick graffiti messages, and decorative designs. There's something so fun about tunnels and passageways that aren't meant for adults to access. And at the same time, the structure was still accessible for a visitor in a wheelchair. The large cardboard boxes were at a great height for them and they spent quite a bit of time adding a decorative touch to those boxes with the paint markers.
p.s.,
Sometimes it's the little teeny tiny details that delight me the most. I made a few copies of this tiny cardboard sculpture to place on the front desks of our main buildings at CSU Spur to get visitors' attention and encourage them to visit the Makerspace for a cardboard activity:
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