Cardboad City

July 06, 2024

Moms Morning Memo

Ready for an exciting project that will transform your recycling bin contents into a sprawling urban landscape? Our Upcycled Cardboard City activity invites kids to design and build their own metropolis using just cardboard and a few craft supplies. It's perfect for budding architects and young city planners!

Activity of the Day

Cardboard City

Create an eco-friendly metropolis from recycled materials.

Things You'll Need

  • Various sizes of cardboard boxes and sheets

  • Scissors and safety cutters

  • Paints and brushes

  • Markers and colored pens

  • Glue and tape

  • Optional: fabric scraps, bottle caps, and other recyclables for extra details

Building Your Cardboard City

  1. Start by sketching a rough layout of your city. Decide where you want buildings, parks, roads, and other features.

  2. Use scissors or safety cutters to shape cardboard into buildings. Kids can create skyscrapers, houses, or even famous landmarks.

  3. Paint and decorate the buildings. Use markers for windows, doors, and other architectural details. Add roofs with fabric scraps or shingles made from smaller cardboard pieces.

  4. Once all the pieces are ready, arrange your buildings on a large flat surface. Use tape to lay down roads and mark different areas like commercial, residential, and industrial zones.

  5. Embellish your city with green spaces, vehicles from bottle caps, and other creative details to bring your cardboard city to life.

Why It's Great for Kids (and grownups!)

This activity helps children learn about urban planning and architecture while encouraging creativity and problem-solving. It also teaches the importance of recycling and reusing materials, showing that creativity can help reduce waste.

Make it extra fun

  • Encourage kids to think about what makes a city functional and fun. Where will people live, work, and play in their city?

  • For a group project, each child can build a different part of the city and then combine them to create a collaborative urban area.

We'd love to see your children's cardboard cities! Share photos of their creations and tell us about their unique architectural features.

💡 Inspiration

These previous activities got soooo much love!

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