Friday 9 May 2014

Make a City... in a Cardboard Box!

This is a great rainy day project. Get everyone involved and make your own city in a box. All you need is a cardboard box, some pens and any old toy cars, blocks or people.


 Make a Cardboard City - Our Handmade Home


  • Start with an empty box 
Ours was from Amazon (it came with our new hand blender and tin opener, exciting stuff!!!) the size we used says 'G20' but this will work with other sizes obviously.

Make a Cardboard City - Our Handmade Home

  • Glue down the internal flappy bits (technical term)

  • Sketch your road layout with a pencil

I used a matchbox car as a guide for how wide the roads should be. Small requested a roundabout it was a tight squeeze but I just managed to fit one in.

Make a Cardboard City - Our Handmade Home


  • Once you are happy with the road layout go over the outside lines with a Sharpie or similar felt tip pen

  • Draw some buildings around the outside walls


Top Tip - Use a tipex mouse for the road markings.

Small drew us a Tetley Tea factory, a school, flats and a Tesco. I added a town hall and proper road markings (though the backwards arrows are infuriating to Small)

Make a Cardboard City - Our Handmade Home

  • Add some detail as you go.


At Small's request we added a bus stop, a zebra crossing and a disabled parking bay outside Tescos.

Make a Cardboard City - Our Handmade Home


I began popping in some cars to photograph but she just couldn't wait :)

Make a Cardboard City - Our Handmade Home

Top Tip: We added a tunnel out of the city by cutting a flap out with a craft knife (then Small added a joke-tunnel so she could trick the people in the cars - she has either been watching either Chitty Chitty Bang Bang or Roger Rabbit)

Make a Cardboard City - Our Handmade Home

The city has been getting played with for a couple of weeks now and new buildings keep getting added around the walls!

It has been brilliant value for money!!

Make a Cardboard City - Our Handmade Home

 Here are some more suggestions:

  • Build a second  cardboard box city and link them up (maybe each kid could do their own design?)
  • Add a train track, a wooden track coming through a tunnel in the corner could be fun.
  • Build buildings and bridges with wooden blocks or with lego



We found it most fun when we just all got stuck in drawing different buildings for our vehicles to visit.



What would you add to your cardboard city?


2 comments :

  1. Cardboard boxes were always popular in our house too. Even the cats got in on the act. Looks like there is hours of fun to be had with yours.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love this idea. It always makes me happy to see kids using their imagination and playing with things that they created.

    ReplyDelete

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