A Tutorial On Playing With Cardboard Boxes

It's the first full week of school, so of course that means we have plenty of packing material around, what with the all the new lockers, outdoor storage cabinetry, and curriculum supplies. 

We pretty much just threw it out into what we call the block area, mainly because we have nowhere to store all those boxes and foam packaging bricks.

We added some cardboard tubes, our every day cars, and a dozen tennis balls for good measure. Oh, we had us some fun.

Yep, we had a motivated parent-teacher working the station. That always helps. Charlotte's mom Renee was inspired in her role as the "block parent."

She asked for tape.

A feat of engineering; experiments in physics.

I told her she was brilliant and she replied, "Well, I haven't had much sleep."

But boxes, tubes, balls and cars, frankly, can get a bit limiting all by themselves, which is why we needed to add markers.

Art is essential to any worthwhile community endeavor.

We also broke out a box cutter, as you can see, for the adult 

to wield upon request.

Getting into the boxes is, naturally, a highlight.

Negotiating small spaces is one of the ways we learn about ourselves in

relationship with others.

He kept begging me to tip the box "up" while he sat in it.

I said, "I'm worried you'll be hurt." He said, "Go slow and

I won't." I began to tip the box up very slowly. A look of

panic crossed his face for a moment, but then he landed in

the bottom of the box. Look at that face. These are the

rewards that come from letting children take part in their

own risk assessment.

We made up some cool games.

They played this game together for a good 20 minutes. Holy cow!

All this great cooperative play and it's only our first full week of school. I see great things in this class's future.

Seriously, the cardboard box absolutely belongs in the Toy Hall Of Fame.