Tag: cardboard

Strumming Fun

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Strumming Fun (4)

For some musical fun today, I made Veronika the easiest guitar ever: just a piece of corrugated cardboard ripped from a recent delivery box (thanks, Amazon Prime!) and a few plastic spoons.

I showed her how she could scrape the spoon along the cardboard to make “music”, humming a favorite tune all the while.

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It took her a few minutes to figure out which way she needed to orient the spoon (concave side down) in order to produce the right sound, but she looked so proud when she had it correct.

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Big brother Travis pointed out that the sound was a bit like a duck quacking. So this led to lots of silly quacking fun.

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Because I’d left out extra plastic spoons, she alternated between strumming or tapping two spoons together, adding a percussion element to her one-girl band. When it came time for her online toddler sing-along, she could strum her own “ukelele” alongside the teacher.

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I loved how simple this was for her to use, and how busy it kept her!

Textured Paint Collage

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Texture Paint (11)

This easy painting method is a neat way to add textures to your child’s next art creation… and all you need to do so is an old cereal box!

Cut portions of the cereal box so they are like combs that can be raked across a painting; I made Travis two version, one with boxy points and one more pointed like shark’s teeth.

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But first we needed to make artwork with really thick paint! Travis was delighted when I told him the thicker the better for this particular project.

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Once he’d covered the surface of his paper, he tried out the combs to see what kinds of lines or designs they made.

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At not quite four years old, Travis’s artwork is still very abstract. Big kids can be more purposeful in their painting – think of textures like the bark of a tree, the waves of the ocean, blades of grass etc. I made a picture with an ocean, sun, and sky for Travis as an example, as well as some abstract shapes.

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He filled two pages with color and shapes, which we left to dry overnight.

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The next morning, we cut one picture into smaller pieces and used a glue stick to add them to the intact picture – this added still more texture to the final product!

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Cardboard Tube Crafts

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Cardboard Tube (10)

When is a cardboard tube not a cardboard tube? When it becomes anything your child can dream up for their crafting!

We made two adorable projects this week, one with a short toilet paper tube and one with a longer paper towel tube – seriously, why doesn’t someone just sell these so you don’t have to wait for the roll to end before crafting?

For the shorter tube, we made an octopus. I snipped the bottom to form 8 little tentacles, which absolutely delighted Travis as he helped fold them up.

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I asked what color his octopus should be and he settled on yellow.

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When the octopus dried, I glued on two googly eyes. Travis adored swimming his new little friend around, and wants to make a whole family (so we’ll have to wait for more empty rolls!)

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Far more complicated, we turned our paper towel tube into a magic wand. To start, Travis very carefully selected which paints to use, adding a bit of white, purple, and blue.

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Once the paint dried, we added further decoration with foam stickers and glitter glue.

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For the top of the wand, I traced a heart from a cookie cutter on construction paper and cut it out for Travis. This, too, needed glitter glue and foam stickers!

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I glued the heart onto poster board backing to make it a touch sturdier. Next, Travis wanted to help punch two holes in the heart. We threaded ribbon through this for a fluttery magical wand effect.

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Finally, I affixed the heart to the top of our tube with glue. Now he can cast magical spells wherever he goes! What will Sorcerer Travis turn a cardboard tube into next?

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