Making structures: using a variety of cardboard boxes (big and small) make fantasy play spaces. Try creating castles, rockets, cars, buses, tunnels, or anything you can think of.
Decorate a box: use any loose parts you can find to decorate a box. Glue things on. Paint and colour some buildings. Poke holes through boxes and string ribbons and strings through them. Add features to the box. You could add buttons to push, steering wheels to turn, lights to turn on and off, horns to beep, windows, or anything else you could think of.
Use boxes to make things: put paper in a box and drop in marbles dipped in paint. Move the box around to create abstract paintings. Try using other things (pinecones are fun) to cover in paint to roll around. See how different objects create different designs. Try different colour combinations to see what new colours appear.
Use nature to enhance a box: Collect materials to add on to a box. Rocks, pinecones, sticks, sand, leaves and branches can make a pretty neat secret hiding place.
Make a colour sorting box or an item sorting box: create games using boxes: Create holes in them for different types of items to sort by category. You could also decorate different boxes in ways that suggest what types of objects the box should hold, then collect some of those items to store inside.
Mystery Box: Secretly place an item inside a box. Let a family member shake the box and ask yes/no questions to try to guess what is inside. This is a great way to build vocabulary by describing the item. It sounds hard and heavy, It feels light and soft. What colour is it? Is it round? Can you eat it? Is it a toy?
The Summer of Play project and the contents on this page are part of an initiative that grew out of the Canadian Association for Young Children. Please visit CAYC Saskatchewan on Facebook for more information: http://www.facebook.com/CAYCsask
