I have a preschooler who definitely needed attention this morning, and it’s a good thing I had a game waiting in the wings! For a couple of weeks now, I’ve been saving old food boxes (cereal cartons, cracker boxes, tea, etc.) in various shapes and sizes, and now it was time to put them to multiple uses!

First we had to cover the blocks in wrapping paper, which Travis loved, especially helping with the tape. We decided we liked using brown craft paper best, although solid colored wrapping paper would be fine.

Travis immediately took to stacking the boxes, so proud of his creations!

Pretty soon thereafter it was Batman’s fortress.

I took the time to draw house details – doors and windows – and we set up a cute Duplo main street…

…but this didn’t interest him for long.

A much bigger hit was… box bowling!

Set up the boxes and take aim.

Next, we took our stacking to the next level by adding cups.

It was a neat architectural challenge to encourage him to use paper cups in between each box layer.

You can also make the blocks more educational. Can you sort the boxes by size, for example?

Or, turn them over and write the letters of your child’s name, one per box. I was so proud of how quickly Travis had his letters in the right order!

Finally, have some good, silly fun. We made a fort and threw cup bombs at each other. Who knew you could do so much with a few boxes?