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New Sprouts Fix It! Box Building Challenge
- Learning Resources Posted On Oct 26, 2021 | 5 - 7 Years STEM
It’s that time of year where the delivery boxes start becoming a little more frequent. Why not make the most of them and repurpose the cardboard into a fun STEAM building challenge? This project is made all the more fun when you have a set of adorable tools to work with, as well as a kid-friendly tape measure to make sure that the build is 100% accurate!
What you need:
- Learning Resources® New Sprouts Fix It! Pink Pretend Play Tool Set
- Learning Resources Simple Tape Measure Purple
- Selection of cardboard boxes
- A few craft materials such as Kwik Stix (paint sticks), tape, scissors, etc.
The Set-Up
This particular activity is all about leaving the set-up as open-ended as possible. Simply put out the cardboard boxes and tools and invite your child to explore and create!
What Shall We Make?
As soon as my four-year-old saw the set-up, she could not contain her excitement. Her first question was, what shall I build? I told her that she could build whatever she wanted using the boxes and tools. She got straight to work testing out the tools to see what each one did before deciding what to build. She particularly enjoyed using the saw on the cardboard, and it made an intriguing noise for her!
Let’s Get Building!
My preschooler then turned her attention to stacking the boxes to make a tower. She wanted to make sure that her tower was stable, so she was very purposeful with the order she stacked the boxes. This showed great awareness of engineering basics.
Once the boxes were carefully stacked to make the tallest tower possible, she used the pretend drill to fix the boxes in place. Then it was time to hammer those nails into place to be extra sure that the tower wouldn’t tumble. Each time my daughter used a tool, she would ask what it was called, and I would ask her to tell me what she thought it was used for. She learned lots of new vocabulary and also demonstrated her previous knowledge of tools and building.
How Tall Is The Tower?
After we were done building the tower, my preschooler asked if it was the tallest one she’s ever built. I replied that we would need to measure it to check, and that’s exactly what we did. We ended up having to ask big bro for some help as it was so big! They worked together to read off the measurement, which I loved to see!
Time to Decorate!
After putting a few more final touches to the structure of the building using her tools, my four-year-old asked if she could decorate it. What a great idea! She used tape and scissors to try and reinforce the different levels of the building, and then she used the Jumbo Kwik Stix to add some color. The paint sticks worked well as they added lots of colors but minimized the mess. While coloring on one of the levels, she asked to measure more as she liked using the tape measure. This was an excellent opportunity to explain some basic math to her. I explained how we could measure different sides of the box to find the height and width of each level. Each time she would read off the numbers, and I would write them down for her. If working with older children, you could then ask them to find the greatest height and width values level. Perfect for developing those all-important early numeracy skills.
My daughter is already asking when we can add more levels to her building, and she loved how open-ended this STEAM project was! The Fix It! tools and the tape measure were perfect play additions and all that building made for some productive gross motor skill development.
Writer’s Bio
Lucy Baker is a Mom of two (4 & 8 years old) passionate about creative play and hands-on learning. She firmly believes in providing children with the opportunity to learn through play and being part of their play journey as a parent. See more of her creative play ideas and process art projects on Instagram @findthelittlemind, and over on her blog, Find the Little Mind.
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