Tuesday, October 6, 2009

The Invention Box

My kids love to make things. And I love to recycle! We've combined both of these loves in today's art idea: The Invention Box.

A friend of mine, who used to teach kindergarten, said this idea was one of the things her students really loved.

All you do is collect - things like paper towel tubes, old yarn, stickers, interesting plastic pots & jars, buttons, the innards from those greeting cards that play music, lids, yogurt cups, anything you can think of. For older kids, beads and glitter, glue, etc. The more random the stuff, the better!

When I stick the invention box on the table for art-time, I pre-rip pieces of masking tape so the kids can tape things together to their hearts' content. Last time, my oldest made a 'cucumber gun that also shot marshmallows'. Thankfully I hadn't put any cucumbers or marshmallows on the table. That was pure imagination. But the invention was pretty cool. It had a moving lever adjusted with a piece of string!

Try this idea - I think your kids will like it.

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