Drop Box

With the last week of summer holidays wrapping up, I really should be organizing school supplies, and pulling my house back together after doing a bare minimum of house-work these past 2 months.  I’m reluctant to give up the slow, lazy pace of my days though, so I’ll likely be scrambling to do it all Monday.

So…instead of cleaning, and organizing, I took on another awesome project. The other day, Play at Home Mom shared pictures of their fab drop box, and I was inspired to make one of my own.

I started with a good sized box, some Sharpies, a paper cutting knife, and a few objects for dropping.  I would think of more “drop-ables” as I worked away.

I started by cutting holes for the foam shapes, and outlining with the sharpies.  That area will be fun for a little match and drop area.  Then I grabbed a handful of paint chip samples, and cut slits in the box, and outlined the slots with 8 different colours.  The paint chips are various shades of each colour, so the Hooligans will have to decide which colour family each paint chip belongs to.

Next, I drew upper and lower case letters on “popsicle” craft sticks, and made a small drop slot for each one.  On the backs of the sticks, I drew coloured circles, squares and triangles, for the little ones who don’t yet know their letters.

I picked out several coloured blocks from our block bucket, and drew corresponding shaped and coloured holes for those to be dropped through.

And the final activity was numbers.  A few dominoes and numbered holes will encourage counting and matching.

When I was finished, I cut 2 holes to sink a couple of containers into.  The box wasn’t big enough for any more than 2.  It would have been nice to be able to fit all 4 containers across the top, but c’est la vie.  When you’re ready to pack it away, you can store the containers and drop-ables inside the box.

Doesn’t it look inviting?  I had a lot of fun working on it.  I always find this kind of thing therapeutic, and kind of lose myself in the process, so it was a relaxing way to spend the afternoon.

I think this is going to be very popular with my little friends!  I can’t wait for them to see it next week.

If you’d like more ideas for creating easy activities from recycled materials, here are a few more treasures we’ve made from our trash!