Friday, February 28, 2014

Cold Weather Projects with Boxes

I order all of our diapers online, so we often have large cardboard boxes in the house. Our last box we turned into a house. This one I turned on it's side to make a barn. The girls drew on the box with markers and I cut out farm animals and hay. They wanted it to be a nighttime barn, so I cut out stars as well. It was interesting to me that Alessia out all the farm animals on the bottom of the box. The realistic idea of them standing on the floor of the barn was stronger in her mind than the visual appearance of them lying down.

 

Today we turned a smaller box into an aquarium. We have a membership to the New England Aquarium and went last weekend. We often make art about our adventures. It gives us an opportunity to think and talk about what we saw and did. I cut out fish, seaweed, and coral, and the girls colored the fish. This time I showed Alessia how to glue some to the sides of the box. She got into it once I showed her and we put most of the coral and seaweed on that way. I hung the fish from the roof of the box and showed the girls how to blow on the fish to make them swim.

 

I asked Alessia what else our aquarium needed. She came up with penguins, rays, turtles, and a diver. The penguings went on the bottom of the inside of the box and the rest on the outside.


I was a little confused when she said the aquarium needed a bus and a train. Then I remembered that due to construction we had to take both a bus and a train to get to the aquarium that day. The trip there and home was obviously an integral part of that trip for her. So we added a bus and a train.

 

These projects can be a little tough for Olivia. She colors with crayons and will do some glueing, but eventually she gets a little bored. When bored she has a habit of throwing things (note the crayons on the floor) or doing little sassy things to get my attention. I know this will get easier as she gets older. I explain to Alessia that sometimes we need to stop and do something else as the project might be a bit advanced for Olivia. She handles it pretty well. So I'm very lucky there.

 

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