Play

10 Tips for Cardboard Play Day

The Global Cardboard Challenge is here again! Will you be joining THE WORLD on October 5th, 2014 to either play or host an event?

For everything Caine's Arcade and The Global Day of Play, please be sure to check out The Imagination Foundation's excellent website and resources. 

I'm also excited to be planning my own event in collaboration with a local adventure playground here in Tokyo! More information to come, but until then I want to share some of my insights from hosting 5+ events last year.......

 *10 Tips for Cardboard Play Day*

1. It's all about the cardboard!

  • Provide a wide variety of cardboard! Shoe boxes, small boxes, over-sized boxes, cardboard tubes, and whatever other reclaimed materials you've collected all add to the diversity and creativity of what kids create.

  • A rule of thumb that I follow is 1 square meter of cardboard for every 20-30 kids

2.Don't let cardboard get unruly.

  • Cardboard + kids can = chaos!

  • Keep the cardboard upright if you can (as if each piece were a book on a book shelf.) That way there is thought in selecting the cardboard and it doesn't get kicked around and stepped on.

  • It's even more helpful to organize your cardboard by size. (Think of a lumber yard.) Kids often know what size materials they need and if the cardboard is organized then kids won't have to spend time rooting around through big piles to get what they want.

3. Give them tool boxes.

  • Tool boxes allow kids to be mobile and have everything they need to build whatever, wherever, with whoever.

  • A tool box can be as simple as a shoe box, or a cardboard six pack.

  • Provide a place that is clearly marked for kids to return tool boxes when they're finished working or ready to leave the play day.

4. Provide a secure area for kids to keep their stuff (i.e. coat check).

  • Kids easily loose track of their new friendship bracelet, cell phone, hooded sweatshirt, etc.

  • Create a place (as simple as a "drop" pile), or even better an informal system like a coat check, for keeping track of kids' things so they can focus on building and collaborating with their friends, and you can alleviate the hassle of having to help them search for their lost items.

5. Keep the organizer free.

  • If you are organizing a cardboard play day, recruit enough parent volunteers to assist kids so you're free to trouble shoot any problems that might pop up.

  • Parents get excited and often want to share or ask questions. If you're responsibility is to supervise kids, you may be torn between providing adequate supervision and having a great conversation with a future cardboard enthusiast.

  • It's also helpful to have a volunteer that is solely devoted to taking photos so you have some great shots for promoting your event next year.

6. Provide a theme/give permission

  • Telling kids that they can build whatever they want is exhilarating for some and overwhelming for others.

  • Providing a theme a invites collaboration and helps kids narrow their focus....

  • We're building a village....

  • We're building igloos....

  • We're building a cardboard maze....

  • We're making cardboard costumes....

  • We're making an arcade....

  • It's a cardboard ocean!

  • Some kids need permission to create and many just want to be told it's OK to be creative and let loose. Indulge them! This is their time to think big and we want to encourage them in any way we can.

7. Give kids real tools.

  • It's important to gauge your audience, (parents kids and the host institution) when deciding what kind of tools you're going to make available to participants. I prefer to always give kids "real tools" as opposed to dumbed down versions that can cause frustration. In the real world, however that's not always possible.

  • If kids are only allowed to use safety scissors and plastic saws, try arming your adult volunteers with more professional tools that can help finish the job. These are the tools I've found to be most effective and in my opinion entirely kid-friendly, but they require instruction and adult supervision:

  • round tipped serrated cutting tool

  • Phillips head screw driver

  • scissors

  • cordless drill

8. Use reusable fasteners.

  • To build really cool, big stuff out of cardboard you need some kind of fastener to hold everything together. (tape and hot glue just don't cut it!) There are 3 that stand out in my opinion, based on their re-usability AND functionality.

  • MakeDo

  • re-usable zip ties

  • nuts and bolts

  • All of these fasteners have different price points and advantages and disadvantages, so I really recommend getting a few of each and test driving them at home before your event.

  • It's really helpful to show participants how the fastener you're using works when kids arrive, so keep some supplies in your pocket to quickly demonstrate as you greet new arrivals.

9. Have an exit strategy.

  • Sometimes kids are so excited at cardboard play day, they can't stop building! Givie kids a heads-up starting 30 minutes before cleanup, so they can get focused on completion and get ready to say goodbye to their creations.

  • Make sure you have a plan for recycling your cardboard. I was once left in a terrible position at a play day, when the organization that donated the cardboard said they could no longer take it back! I had to haul it all back to my home by bike and then put it out for recycling over a course of several weeks!

  • If you haven't prearranged volunteers for cleaning up and bundling cardboard at the end of your event, a clipboard signup is handy when participants arrive and usually provides you with enough hands to finish the job.

10. Get feedback.

  • This is something new I'm hoping to try this year; a one sentence question for kids as they're cleaning up or heading out.... you could also try a paper-pencil survey or even a simple high five?

  • What would you build next time?

  • Is it more fun to work by yourself, with your mom and dad, or with a friend?

  • What was the best part about today?

  • Have you ever made/built something like this? Why/Why not?

  • See you next year?

Loose Parts Play & Cardboard Totem Boxes

When I released the Totem Box pattern a few weeks ago,  I alluded to the fact that this was a design that I used to manage the "little" toys in our house, but the thought behind the design goes a little deeper.

Quite a few months ago, I made an online friend named Allie who writes the blog, Bakers and Astronauts (as well as Play Lab). Allie's blog is hands down my favorite website about early childhood and inspired play, and it was Allie who first introduced me to the Theory of Loose Parts, which got me exploring with my own children.

"The Theory of Loose Parts Play" was proposed by Simon Nicholson back in the 1970's. His theory is this: "In any environment, both the degree of inventiveness and creativity, and the possibility of discovery, are directly proportional to the number and kind of variables in it."

When I started thinking about adapting Loose Parts Play inside my home, there were  a few things to rethink. First of all when Nicholson speaks about number and kind of variables, I think he ultimately takes his inspiration from one place, and one place only; the truly wild outdoors. Outside loose parts can fall from the sky, be dug from the ground, plucked from a branch, or drop from a bird's wing. The sounds, textures, and  smells are all ever-changing and we could never, ever recreate such an amazing sensory experience  inside a house, even with dump trucks of glitter.

I had to watch my daughters play a lot to better understand how I could compete with mother nature and increase the number of "variables" (not necessarily the amount of stuff) within our home play environment. Over time, I noticed three categories of objects emerge that they "needed" to make their play more cohesive:

Loose Parts: hand-held objects that assume imagined identities through play.

Containers: objects used by my daughters for collecting, sorting and transporting loose parts as well as defining small spaces.

Expandable Parts: objects used by my daughters to construct and define large spaces

Now, whenever my daughters engage in loose-parts-style play, I try to make sure that all of these elements are available to them. When they are absent, tragic things have happened. Entire shelves of puzzles have been mined for loose parts, fabric and sewing notions have gone missing and Loose Parts Play has ravaged my home like a wildfire, consuming hours of my time in little loose parts cleanup. Although these ideas are only my own expansion on someone else's theory, so far they have proven true for our sample size of two. I'm curious to hear about your observations. What drives the loose parts engine in your home or classroom?

Enjoy our family recipe for Loose Parts Play (indoors):

(Substitute as necessary)

Loose Parts wooden blocks, plastic construction blocks, plastic bottle caps, acorns, shells, stones, cardboard tubes, clothespins, handkerchiefs, fabric scraps, stones, coins

+

Containers                                                                                                                   

Sorting Totem Boxes, egg cartons, cardboard fruit trays, graduated boxes

Transporting small paper bags, child sized buckets, baskets, boxes

Collecting nesting eggs (wooden or plastic), Matryoshka dolls, jewelry boxes, matchboxes, small recycled plastic jars, small tins with lids

 +

Expandable Parts                                                                                                         

Textiles large scarves, large fabric pieces, tissue paper, newspaper, softened Kraft paper, child-sized carpets or rugs, blankets

“Fences” cushions, interlocking cardboard pieces, over-sized lightweight blocks, Hula Hoops, jump ropes, long, lightweight cardboard tubes, fold-up cardboard screens