Make your own toys: Boxes (Part 1)

While walking through the mall with your child, have you ever intentionally avoided your child’s favorite toy store? Do you cringe when your child is invited to a play date at his best friend’s house, his friend who has the latest gadget, computer game or Lego?

Although many commercially available toys are great-they are safe, stimulating, educational, and appealing to children-they can be quite expensive.

In this series of articles, we would like to present everyday materials that you have at home that children love to play with. These everyday materials are not only economical, but also “open ended” (they can be used in many different ways). This will encourage your children to use their imagination and creativity. It will also teach them to be resourceful.

Today we’ll start with boxes!

Toddlers and older children LOVE big boxes. There is so much they can do with them! They can get into them and drive them like a car, pull them like a wagon, or just enjoy climbing in and out! Huge ones (balikbayan/refrigerator boxes) can become houses, spaceships, and submarines. Give children scissors, paint, and other art materials and be amazed at how they use their imagination to transform these boxes.

Smaller boxes (e.g. shoeboxes, tissue, toothpaste, medicine boxes) can be covered in news or wrapping paper and transformed into building blocks. Children can stack them and knock them down safely. With glue or tape, they can put them together to make sculptures. You can also cut out one side of the box and let children put smaller boxes into bigger ones. Have objects with different colors or shapes and ask the children to put similar ones in the same box. 

Boxes can also be made into musical instruments. Put small pebbles, rice or beans into a box and tape it up. Give it to your child to shake and make some noise!

You can also glue some interesting pictures or letters to the sides of a box. Then you and your child can turn the box around and talk about the different objects. This is great for developing your child’s vocabulary and letter recognition skills.

Cut a hole on the top of a medium sized box (big enough for your child to stick his arm in easily).  Put in objects with interesting texture (soft, rough, spiky, etc.). Ask your child to put his hand in and guess what the object is.

Use egg cartons to practice counting! Put different number of pebbles or beans in each hole on one side. Ask your child to put the same number on the other side.

Your child will probably find many other ways of using boxes and we’d love for you to share them with us. Please post a picture of your child’s box toy on the RAFI facebook site, www.facebook. com/rafi.org.ph.

Since safety is always of primary concern, here are some important tips in selecting safe toys-commercial or found at home-for your children to play with:

• Ensure that the objects are made with non-toxic materials, and paints. Avoid toys that are sharp and breakable.

• Very young children like to put things in their mouth so they should not be given things that are small or have small removable parts that they might choke on (if it fits through a toilet paper roll, don’t give it to them).

• Ensure the toys are not too heavy so that they don’t fall on the child and injure him/her.

• Strings and cords longer than 12 inches should be avoided.

(Source: http:suite101.com//article/baby-toys)

The Freeman and the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation Inc. is running weekly features on Early Childhood Care and Development to emphasize the importance of Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) and to increase public support for ECCD.