It was an unusually rainy day here in Texas, and I don't want to sound unappreciative, but that makes the
mother of a preschoolers' life just a little more difficult than usual. As I found myself confronted with the age old question of what to do on a rainy day, I had to push past the obvious (TV) and retrieve the Invention Box.
Cason loves to invent things and create things. Anyone who has visited our house has seen the results of these projects all over the walls. In an effort to foster this passion, we started the Invention Box. It's just a giant plastic tub -- nothing fancy. It's filled with egg crates, paper towel rolls, paper cups, boxes, straws and anything else that seemed interesting and destined for the local landfill -- nothing fancy.
But the things that come out of Cason's brilliant little mind -- they're really fancy! Just last week we had an entire village of Styrofoam dots inhabiting our living room. They had individual rooms, garages, even a swimming pool. Heck, I was ready to move in myself!
It's just amazing to see what a child can do with some trash (clean, of course), tape, string and scissors!
We have a similar box ("Craft Central") in our house and I'm really happy that my two 1st graders use it CONSTANTLY.
One day, one of the boys was upset because I wouldn't buy him a Bakugan Launcher (basically a "gun" strapped to the wrist that shoots out little balls that turn into fantasy creatures when they hit a metal card - if you don't watch the associated cartoon, count yourself blessed...)
Instead of having a complete meltdown in the store or later at home, he decided to build one himself! He used a TP roll with tape, paper and yarn to hold it on. Saved me $15 and got his brain motivated to A) get something he wanted and B) not argue with mommy to get it! And when it broke, he fixed it himself instead of throwing it away and expecting me to buy a new one like he would have with the real toy!
The Invention Box ROCKS!
Posted by: Terese | October 15, 2008 at 09:40 PM